The Rival Schools of Medicine

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THE RIVAL SCHOOLS OF MEDICINE.

By the kindness of a medical friend we have been furnished with a copy of the Majority and Minority Reports of the Committee of the Board of Governors upon the propriety of so amending the law organizing the Bellevue Hospital Medical Department as to provide that one half of that Institution shall be set apart for the practice of Homæopathy, under the care of a Medical Board nominated by the Homæopathic Society of New York. The amendment provided that each case admitted in said Hospital should be transferred to the care of Allopaths and Homæopaths alternately, and the intention of the originators of the movement would seem, on its face, to have been a fair trial of both systems with a view to ascertain the practical workings of each under the same outward conditions. Those interested in such matters will have seen, ere this, that a majority of the Committee promptly reported adversely to the application of and that further consideration of the matter has been indefinitely postponed. So far as the question concerning Bellevue Hospital is concerned, of course we have nothing to say, that being a merely local matter. It is most likely, however, that the Homæopathists themselves do not wish for any privileges of the kind. When the time comes they will doubtless have a Hospital of their own, as they now have numerous Dispensaries. What we propose at present is, in the light afforded us by the reports now lying before us, to say a few words concerning the rival systems themselves, mindful that the subject is one of great—nay, of the very last—importance and that to the doubter—him who stands between two stools in regard to this matter—the hackneyed quotation might be applied with startling significance:

"Under which King, Bezonian? Speak or die!"¹

The Allopathic practice of medicine or "the regular practice," is the growth of centuries and is strongly entrenched, like other venerable institutions, within the walls of custom, faith, and reverence. Men of the highest learning and the profoundest insight have filled its ranks—everywhere throughout the enlightened world it is recognised as the highest product of human science for the alleviation of human ills and the lengthening of human life—it has seen numberless forms of empiricism arise like fungi in a night and vanish away almost as rapidly, and it claims to be stable, enduring, "founded on a rock," against which the restless tide of change, progress, and invention, shall not prevail.

But half a century ago a voice arose from the land of theories and abstractions, Germany, and a new heresy soon spread itself with startling rapidity through the ranks of the faithful. Hahnemann became the apostle of a new medical creed, and advocated it with the same vigor and enthusiasm with which Luther inaugurated a reformed religious creed on the same ground, three hundred years before.² The new system spread rapidly, and gained disciples among the intelligent of every land. Full of zeal for what they esteemed the advent of a new and precious boon to Humanity, the Homæopaths fancied they saw in the magic words "similia similibus curantur," the true "handwriting on the wall," that announced the downfall of the Old Practice.³

These glowing hopes have not been realised to their full extent, but it cannot be denied that this "new light" of Medicine has made wonderful progress, thus far. As its advocates say, it is no longer an experiment, and they claim that each succeeding year more fully demonstrates that it is a true reform. Say they: "It has passed through the first stage of opposition from the profession—that of raillery and ridicule. It is now far advanced in the second stages, that of abuse; and ere long it will enter the third and last stage—that of general adoption." Homæopathic journals are published in almost every European language; Homæopathic Hospitals and Dispensaries are in active operation; European Homæopathic Court Physicians have won honors from Royalty; learned professors in Allopathic colleges have been converted to the new doctrines; its practitioners in the United States are numbered by many thousands and of their success in general practice we have the highest evidences on every hand. Homæopathy can have little reason to complain thus far, that its claims have been overlooked and its merits unappreciated.

But however the public may be affected, between the rival schools and their immediate professors, the battle rages fiercely. The evidences of partisan feelings are even amusingly apparent in the reports before us. One would imagine that the chief purpose of a committee of laymen entrusted with the consideration of a matter of this kind would be to elicit truth—to get at the facts wherever facts were available and to weigh the evidence calmly and dispassionately. But the gentlemen to whom was delegated the duty of investigation appear to have had their minds unalterably made up beforehand and to have searched the records with the simple view of bringing heavy guns to bear against each other's favorite schools. The Allopaths call Homæopathy "a wild, transcendental theory which pleases the credulity of the masses." The Homæopathists retort that "the Allopaths administer poisonous drugs until the patient is within an inch of his death, and on every side do we see the victims of their overdosing." The Allopaths aver that in every instance where Homæopathy has been tested in Hospitals it has been entirely inefficient and has resulted in utter failure. The Homæopaths deny this in toto and accuse the majority committee of perverting facts, of suppressing evidence that ought to have been brought forward, and of "casting their eyes back more than twenty years, totally ignoring the fact that within those twenty years Homæopathy has been spreading at a rate unparalleled in the history of medicine." The two reports should be read together to enable the reader to get any clear idea of the true merits of the question, and even then it requires considerable acumen to divest the naked facts from the mist of prejudice and jealousy which has been thrown around them.

It is not our place, and it certainly is not our intention to advocate the claims of the old system against the new or of the new against the old. But we do wish to exclaim against the virulent antipathies, the petty jealousies, the covert slanders, and the open sneers that characterise the encounters between the adherents of both. We know now which is the worse—the bigotry of Religion or of Medicine. Both callings are high and sacred. To them are entrusted our nearest interests. The dearest of posessions—health and life—are confided to the care of the one and to the other is given the guardianship of our spiritual welfare. Yet is the sense of responsibility in both very much inferior to what it should be. Everywhere we see this endless collision of sects, cliques and schools and the warfare of bigotry. Surely it is about time that the narrow mindedness and prejudice which have unhappily encrusted our medical system should give way, in a degree, to the demands of progress and the spirit of the age. Great and sweeping reforms never arise unless there is an urgent necessity for them and if a new doctrine be sound in the main and have truth on its side, a blind resistance and refusal to recognise it will avail nothing. At any rate, mutual fairness and courtesy if not concession, will prove to be the most graceful and, in the end, the wisest policy to pursue. The question is one for the People to decide. The duty of the practitioners is to fulfill their important calling, soberly, faithfully and conscientiously, leaving the result to time.

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