BY S. G. GUENTHER, M. D., MILWAUKEE, WIS.**

BARON KACZKOWSKY, Doctor of Medicine and Surgery, Bachelor of Obstetrics, and Practicing Physician at Vienna, gives, in the “Monthly Magazine of the Association of Homoeopathists of Austria,” an interesting relation of his conversion from the doctrines of the old school.

After setting forth the fanaticism and bigotry with which for fifteen years “he fought in the ranks of the most ardent and exasperated opponents of Homoeopathy,” he proceeds as follows:

“In 1840, I was appointed Second Surgeon at the Imperial General Hospital, where I fell sick with a severe rheumatic attack, caused by taking cold during the performance of a very difficult surgical operation. Knowing that complaints like mine were usually treated for several months, and without any permanent relief, I, of course, had very little confidence in the practice of the Hospital, and I therefore applied a curing method of my own. Innumerable drastic remedies, such as cataplasms of mustard, Russian steam baths, &c, proved ineffectual; for, although the swellings in the joints subsided, the parts remained very sensitive to changes of temperature, with an evident proneness to rheumatic pains, and an unmistakable disposition to inflammation of the throat. This ultimated in hypertrophy of the tonsils, which were at length removed by excision.”

Shortly after, in traveling for scientific purposes, over the greater part of Europe, he suffered much from complaints of the throat, which terminated in

“an inflammation and swelling of a gland beneath the right ear, that, in spite of the remedies applied, became indurated and enlarged to the size of a man's fist, extending to the clavicle, and causing violent pain upon turning the neck.

“I can safely say, that the whole medico-surgical therapeutics were exhausted in my behalf, and that I used everything that I thought of any avail, or that could be devised by my friends and colleagues, especially by the professors of medical art in the University-Doctors Sigmund, Kolletschka and Rokitansky. Thus, for six years, I underwent every sort of treatment, without even the slightest relief.”

Thus becoming despondent, and losing all hope of any relief, he was at length persuaded to visit the Homoeopathic Hospital, in the Leopoldstadt, and was very much surprised to find

“that the proceedings in that institution, with regard to the examination of patients, to the establishment of the diagnosis, and to all measures and methods of exploration, treatment and attendance, were even more precise than in the Allopathic Hospitals.”

He gradually became interested in Homoeopathy, and concluded to try its effects upon his own person, in curing the disease above mentioned.

“The swelling, meantime, had increased to an intolerable size. Commencing on the first of April, A. D., 1851, I took, every morning, one drop of belladonna in the sixth dynamization, alternating every second day, in the evening, with one grain of hepar sulphuris calcaream, of the same potency. In a couple of days, some striking modifications were manifested, in the indurated swelling of the gland, and the homogeneous hard mass began to disperse into separate smaller and painless knots, and, in like proportion, the motions of the neck became easier. Before the end of July, the swelling, as well as the pain and stiffness of the neck, had entirely disappeared. Certain hemorrhoidal complaints that troubled me, for a long time, had also totally ceased by this date.”

The Baron then concludes with a statement of the remarkable success that followed his treatment of patients in accordance with the Homoeopathic law, and his ultimate public adhesion to the faith.

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