VETERINARY HOMOEOPATHY. - To the Editor of the Field, Sir: As your columns occasionally admit the narration of cures, on the homoeopathic principle, I hope you may find the following particulars of a very hopeless case of a sick cow successfully so treated, of sufficient interest to command a place in your widely read journal. During my visits to a friend suffering from pulmonary hemorrhage, near Iver, Bucks, I was asked if I could advise a neighboring farmer concerning the sudden illness of a valuable Guernsey cow, which had calved on the morning of the previous day (Saturday), June 8rd,1865. Independent of a great fondness for animals, the deep scientific interest and instruction attaching to the study of comparative pathology enlisted, without delay, my services on behalf of the poor animal. On being conducted by a gentleman to the paddock where the cow stood with her calf by her side, I found the farmer, Mr. Golf, Mr. Lamb (the owner of the cow) the veterinary surgeon from Uxbridge, and an old farmer who had seen much illness in animals, all watching the case, the nature of which was a puzzle to all present. I was informed by Mr. Goff - a very intelligent man, who has, in the brief experience of this cow's illness, become, with moderate instruction, a wonderfully expert auscultator - that he left the animal apparently well when he went to church at eleven o'clock, but on his return, between one and two o'clock, p. m., he found her unable to walk, without a shaking of her limbs, and giving way of her joints, as if she would fall. Believing the illness to be milk fever, Aconite and Belladonna had been administered frequently, with no beneficial result. The cow could scarcely move a step without appearing as if she would fall. Her injected eyes had a glassy, dull expression of some serious illness. The milk was suppressed, neither had there been for some considerable time any signs of intestinal or urinary function. On applying my ear over the cow's ribs, I soon discovered her disease to be a severe attack of inflammation and congestion of the lungs. Her condition was one of great danger, for which I recommended Phosphorus. Mr. Goff tended her all night, scrupulously giving the medicine every two hours. In the early morning (Whit-Monday), I was asked to look at the animal “before she died.” On visiting her, in company with another gentlemen, I found her lying on her right side under a shed, where she had been for some hours unable to rise. Her neck was stretched out, and on the left side of it there was a large globular swelling, such as may be observed in large fleshy muscles when drawn up in severe cramp. Her breathing was short; her eyelids, when raised by the finger, remained in that position until they slowly and imperfectly recovered their former position. This was a marked proof of exhausted vitality, and the rapidity with which life was ebbing. While making a minute and careful examination into the stale of her respiration, the cow gave a distressed mean, as if dying, when I observed a peculiar deep, fan-like motion of her nostrils, a characteristic symptom for the selection of Lycopodium (sometimes called vegetable Sulphur) in the treatment of young persons suffering under inflammation of the lungs and to which I called the attention of the profession and the public in the July number of the Monthly Homoeopathic Review,1863. Although years of study and observation had satisfied me that many of the severe attacks of diseases among animals yielded as rapidly to accurate homoeopathic selections administered in an infinitesimal dose, as the like diseases in children, I must confess that I had very little hopes of a favorable result in this extreme case. Twelve globules - yes, twelve globules of Lycopodium, more attenuated or dynamized than the 200th dilution, were dissolved in a quart bottle or cold water, and a tablespoonful administered every half-hour. I left the apparently dying animal at half-past eight on the morning of Whit-Monday, Mr. Goff, Mr. Lamb, and other persons being present, promising to see her when I returned in the afternoon, if she were still alive. As the forenoon advanced, there being no visible improvement and her death being momentarily expected, a messenger was despatched to Iver, for the butcher to come and kill her. Fortunately, it being Whit-Monday, the butchers were absent, holiday making. At last a slaughterer was found at Uxbridge, but his men were also otherwise engaged, so the poor cow was allowed time for the Lycopodium to work upon her disease, and to the astonishment of all who witnessed this apparently hopeless case, the cow rose up and stood firmly on her legs, at a few minutes before two, p.m. She walked without trembling, and gave most satisfactory evidence that there was neither intestinal nor urinary impediment in her case. I saw her at half-past six in the evening, when she was feeding, and there was scarcely a remnant of the peculiar action of the nostrils to be discovered. One gentleman who observed the symptom, remarked that he could never understand what that peculiar action meant, as he had often remarked to his bailiffs and servants when his cattle were dying with pneumonia, “How that beast sneers.” This is really a very graphic expression of the symptom as it occurs in animals, and the hint may be of use to future observers. The Lycopodium was continued at longer intervals, for although great and marked relief had been afforded to oppressed organic life, it was not to be supposed that a grave lung disease had been thus suddenly cured! In fact, while I write (June 24th) the remnant of the crepitating role characteristic of pneumonia may yet be heard by a capable auscultator in the posterior margin of the left lung. During the progress of the case the left posterior quarter of her udder became hard and tender and suppuration was dreaded. Blood instead of milk came from the teat, still a marked indication for Lycopodium, which I ordered to be continued, and the udder threatening also soon disappeared to the delight of Mr. Goff, who watched night and day most assiduously this truly marvelous case. * * In answer to your Natal correspondent of last week, asking for information in regard to the sore mouths in sheep passing into “blue tongues” when they fall down, kick and die; I should recommend him to study out of a reliable Materia Medica, the action of Arsenic, Muriatic acid, Digitalis, and Sabadilla. Amongst the first two or three remedies he will probably find more corresponding to the whole disorder or the sheep than he has yet observed., I am, Sir, yours faithfully, D. Wilson, M. D. A MEDICAL TEST IN POLITICS. - The Pall Mall Gazette has the following. “A novel element has been introduced into the Westminster election. There is a suspicion or heterodoxy against even Captain Grosvenor, not, of course, on theological points, but it is doubtful whether he is not a medical heretic. It is hinted that he is a Homoeopathist, and Dr. Tweedie, who was on his committee, wrote to ask him if the insinuation were true, for in case it was he should wish to withdraw his support. To this the gallant candidate sent the following reply: 'Whenever I am ill, which, by the blessing of Providence, does not happen very often, I apply for advice and assistance to the doctor of my regiment, who is, to the best of my belief, a very orthodox practitioner.' The doctor characterized this reply as 'equivocal,' and withdrew his name. The Lancet, with a zeal for orthodoxy as ardent as that of the Morning Advertiser, holds him up as an example to his brethren. ” 'As a profession,' says this journal, 'we can have no faith in the political wisdom or legislative fitness of a man who, on questions of medical and sanitary legislation, stands on the senseless platform of the homoeopathic delusion. Dr. Tweedie will deserve and meet with the cordial approbation or his professional brethren. The question put is plain and distinct; the answer is singularly unsatisfactory. It remains for Captain Grosvenor to speak in language which cannot be mistaken. The profession will pause for his reply. The question admits of as clear an answer as one which relates to the extension of the suffrage or the vote by ballot. It must be borne in mind that the honest practitioners of medicine, in withholding their support from Captain Grosvenor, are acting from purely conscientious motives. They justly regard Homoeopathy as a very senseless, and withal a very dangerous error, and they could not consistently vote for a candidate for their suffrages who holds a contrary opinion.'“ A MORAL LESSON TO DOCTORCRAFT.** - Captain Grosvenor was returned at the head or the poll for Westminster; Colonel Hughes was returned at the head of the poll for Lambeth.

Our journal is not devoted to politics. Political discussions are not adapted to our pages; but a special interest was felt by all Homoeopathists in the result of the contest in Westminster and in Lambeth, from the attempt made by the Lancet, the British Medical Journal and Punch, to oppose these two gentlemen, simply because they were known or suspected to be Homoeopathists.

A signal defeat has overtaken these conspirators against the liberty of her Majesty's lieges in matters medical. The daily and weekly press poured out its torrent of remonstrance and ridicule against the course proposed by the serious and comic serials devoted to the worship of massive druggism, poisonous medication and destructive action on the blood-vessels, nerves and skin of the whole English race.

We have no wish to fight “our battles o'er again,” nor “twice to slay the slain; “the victory belongs to Homoeopathy and common sense, and we are not so devoid of generosity as to exult over the fallen. That we are led to allude to the subject at all is that it affords us a good illustration or the real progress of the people in intelligence and civilization, and of their determination to resist the efforts of a party who would, if they had the Power, substitute the doctor of 1865 for the priest of the middle ages. The allopathic doctor, led by the Lancet, have inaugurated an ”odium medicum” which rivals, if it do not surpass the ”odium theologicum“ of a past age. They have organized a system of terrorism within their ranks, embodying the worst and most debasing features of Trades-Unionism. They have pulled down their leaders and made them their slaves; and now, in the pride of unbridled democratic power, they have attempted to push their vicious principle a step further, by making a man's medical creed a test of his fitness for entering Parliament.

This election will prove to these fanatics that the English people will not submit to be doctor-ridden. They have suffered too much in past ages from the comparatively mild sway of the priest (against which they made a spirited and a successful resistance), to sit down quietly to be bled and blistered and purged and leeched against their will, by order of the British Medical Association and its myrmidons.

The Lancet was appalled when it saw how very much in earnest the people and the press were in repelling its assaults on their liberties. Forthwith the Editor sat down to attempt to allay the storm he had raised. In two leading articles, one on June 24th, the other on July 8th, he strives to escape from his untenable position by offering excuses, which discover to us the whole weakness of the cause he advocates. For his excuses themselves are but slanderous accusations against Homoeopathy, which the Lancet dared not have ventured to make, were it not that it refuses to admit any reply into its pages.

The accusations are these:

That “in 1856 Lord Robert Grosvenor, acting as touter for the interest of the class whom he patronizes, called Sir Benjamin Hall to account, in the House of Commons, for not officially recognizing the delusion of Homoeopathy,and endeavored to impose condition, upon the Committee of the College of Physicians which would have been felt as insulting, while they were actually, as they were probably intended to be obstructive.”

Now these are the facts:

In 1854 cholera was prevalent in London. The President of the Board of Health (Sir B. Hall) sent schedules round to every legally qualified medical practitioner (whether homoeopathic or allopathic), requesting him, if he had any cases of cholera, to report upon them, stating their course, their treatment and their termination. These schedules were then to be forwarded to a “Treatment Committee of the Medical Council,” who were to embody them in a Report to be presented to both Houses of Parliament.

In addition to these schedules, the cases treated in the hospitals were to be reported on, and Medical Inspectors were appointed who were to visit the hospitals to check the Reports.

The Homoeopathic Hospital received a large number of cholera cases, being situated in the middle of the infected district. Dr. Macloughlin, one of the Medical Inspectors of the Board of Health visited the hospital constantly, and thus wrote afterwards: “That there may therefore be no misapprehension about the cases I saw in your hospital, I will add, that all I saw there were true cases of cholera, in the various stages of the disease; and that I saw several cases which did well under your treatment, which I have no hesitation in saying would have sunk under any other.”

“In conclusion, I must repeat to you what I have already told you, and what I have told everyone with whom I have conversed, that although an Allopathist by principle, education and practice, yet, was it the will of Providence to afflict me with cholera, and to deprive me of the power of prescribing for myself, I would rather be in the hands of a homoeopathic than of an allopathic adviser.” Now will it be believed, that when the Medical Council sent in its Report on the Cholera to the Houses of Parliament,no notice whatever was taken of the returns sent in by homoeopathic practitioners; and not only that, but no notice whatever was taken of the returns sent from the Homoeopathic Hospital, though the allopathic Medical Inspector himself had borne his special testimony to their truthfulness and to the superior efficacy of the treatment?

Accordingly, on May 14th, 1855, Lord Robert Grosvenor, from his place in the House of Commons, asked the President of the Board of Health the reason for this omission. The Medical Council was appealed to, and they returned for answer the following resolution: ”Resolved, That by introducing the returns of homoeopathic practitioners, they would not only compromise the value and utility of their averages of cure, as deduced from the operations of known remedies, but they would give an unjustifiable sanction to an empirical practice, alike opposed to the maintenance of truth and to the progress of science. John Ayrton Paris, President.“

The immediate effect of Lord Robert Grosvenor's question was the publication of a second parliamentary paper, containing a Report of the returns so unjustifiably withheld by the Medical Council. To hide their ignorance of the homoeopathic remedies, and to save their own futile attempts at cure from a comparison with that which was so infinitely more successful, this body, with the President of the College of Physicians at their head, suppressed a great truth, and were content to act as traitors to the trust reposed in them by their country. The Allopathic Treatment showed a mortality of 36.2 percent.; the Homoeopathic Treatment a mortality of 16.4 percent. Let it be recollected that the truth of these Reports was verified by allopathic Medical Inspectors.

For this determined effort on Lord Robert Grosvenor's part to prevent a gross injustice against humanity, he incurred the abuse and hatred of the Lancet. In 1855, this venal periodical applied to him the opprobrious epithet of ”touter, which it has revived in 1865, with a continuation of the same rancorous spirit. It cannot forgive him the honesty with which he exposed a nefarious transaction.

The above simple relation of the facts will show how utterly slanderous is the accusation that Lord Robert Grosvenor “obstructed” any “measure of organization desirable for the public interest.” On the contrary he prevented the Medical Council from using this “organization” for purely party purposes.

In 1855 Mr. Wakley, then Editor of the Lancet, threatened to turn Lord Robert Grosvenor out of the representation of Middlesex, for his determined opposition to this disgraceful medical cabal.

In 1865 we find the editor of the Lancet, with hereditary malignity, holding out the same threat against Lord Robert Grosvenor's son, with regard to the representation of Westminster. Either threat was equally impotent. We hope the Lancet will, in time, learn the lesson, thus, for a second time, repeated.

The second accusation is equally slanderous. It is this: the Editor of the Lancet asserts, that the protection of the public against quacks has failed chiefly through the efforts of Homoeopathicians; he says, after referring to the great evil of quackery, “An act passed to prevent this imposture and villainy has failed, because of the facility with which so-called homoeopathic colleges and institutes present diplomas to any applicant with a few pounds in his pocket, and because, when such a person displays his parchment, it is impossible to deny that he has an apparent title to dub himself doctor… this is precisely the class of whom men of Lord Grosvenor's stamp are the advocates. “This statement of the Lancet's is a deliberate falsehood.

Those quacks, who in London and other large towns are the pests of modern society, are, to a man, Allopathists. They are well known, they are avoided by all respectable men of either school, but their diplomas are Allopathic. We have none of them.

As to the sale of diplomas by homoeopathic colleges, there have been, and we believe, are, one or two American colleges whose diplomas were to be bought by men who could prove, by certificates from qualified medical practitioners in this country, that they had studied and were proficient in medical science, but the British Homoeopathic Society repudiates such men, and its rules exclude all such men from its membership.

No medical practitioner can obtain the membership of the British Homoeopathic Society unless he can prove the possession of diplomas, gained by examination, and registered under the new Medical Act. The above accusation, then, is slanderous and offensively untrue. Bought diplomas are far more frequent among the Allopathists themselves. Erlangen, Giessen, and many other allopathic German Universities made themselves notorious for the ease with which they, at one time, sold their diplomas. So also some of the Scotch Universities. Numbers or men holding Scotch diplomas obtained them by simple purchase, or after an examination which was but a farce. It is true that these things are now of the past, as the new Medical Act makes these bought diplomas of no use to their holders. We only mention them to show that the Lancet has made a false accusation against Homoeopathy, in attributing the difficulties which have arisen from the possession of bought diplomas, to the action of the homoeopathic colleges.

The notorious Dr. Pritchard was one of the many Allopathists who hold the Erlangen (allopathic) M.D. which he bought (without having previously passed any examination at that University).

We need not further expose the fabrications by which the Lancet has tried to wriggle itself out of the ridiculous position into which it fell, dragging with it poor Dr. Tweedie and the medical electors of Westminster. Everyone knows that when the Editor pleads as follows, he is talking nonsense or worse: “On all those momentous questions of sanitary law, upon the right solution of which hang the health, moral well-being and lives of millions, Captain Grosvenor is likely to seek guidance at the fountain of imbecility and mischief.” Why? because he is a Homoeopath.

We say, without fear of contradiction, that there are no more consistent sanitary reformers, no more pains-taking curators of public health and human life, than that body or physicians and surgeons who have adopted the homoeopathic system of medicine. This is so well known to all who come in contact with them that we need not enlarge on their defence.

As to ”moral well-being,” we should earnestly advise the Lancet to look at home. It has a bad habit of treating medicine, not as a science, but as a polity. It enters into the question, not as an enquirer after truth, but as a strong political partisan. It uses all the worst arts of partisan warfare. It avoids a fair fight. It seeks to stab in the dark. Before striking a blow it carefully protects itself from the possibility of its intended victim being able to defend himself. Having cased himself in concealed armor, the editor uses big words, insulting expressions, deliberate mis-statements and downright lies, to the great injury of his own “moral well-being,” and to the injury of the whole medical profession.

We warn the Lancet that as men who wore concealed armor were held as the most despicable and dishonorable of beings, in times when dueling was practiced - as assassins who stole upon their victims from behind and pionarded the defenceless, were held as the most abhorred and depraved of men, so, in these times, journalists who assail the characters and reputations of their fellow men, and refuse the entrance of any defence into their pages, deserve and will receive the same loathing and detestation from all men of honor as have been heaped in all times on assassins and cowardly perfidious assailants. The medical moral-assassin of today, the secret poisoner of his honorable opponent's character and fame, deserves and will receive no pity at our hands; and it needs but to expose him, to ensure his receiving his full meed of public disfavor.

Candidly we advise the Lancet and the other medical journals to retrace their steps, and to adopt towards Homoeopathy an honest and honorable course. The question of the healing of the sick ought not to be treated as one of feeling or opinion, but as one of fact and reason, to be determined as all other scientific truths are determined, by experimental observation. - Monthly Homoeopathic Review.

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