confess allegiance to the laws of nature, which will receive no dictation from man; above all, as they would not be found doing injustice and cruelly oppressing the innocent; in short, as they feel the claims of highest Duty, I adjure them to pause ere it be too late, and willingly to retrace their steps, lest ignominiously they may afterwards be compelled to retreat from their present false and discreditable position.

I have the honour to be,

My Lord Provost and Gentlemen,

Your obedient servant,

AN ALUMNUS OF THE UNIVERSITY.

P. S. The following resolutions were subsequently adopted unanimously by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh:

"1. The College having considered a series of resolutions transmitted by the Royal College of Physicians, in regard to Homœopathy, feel called upon to express their opinion that the system so designated being entirely inconsistent with the principles professed by candidates for the diploma of the College of Surgeons, any fellow or licentiate who practises it, or countenances others in doing so, by meeting them in consultation, will justly incur the disapprobation of the College.

"2. That a copy of the above resolution be transmitted to the Royal College of Physicians."

We cannot desire a better reproof of the narrow bigotry of our Scottish College than the following resolution of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England:

"That the Council have attentively and repeatedly considered the various communications which they have received on the subject of Homœopathy; and, after mature deliberation, have resolved, that it is not expedient for this College to interfere in the matter."

REASONS

FOR

EMBRACING HOMEOPATHY.*

HAVING been known until within a comparatively short time since (especially while holding office in the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh) as a determined opponent of Homoeopathy and its disciples, and now coming forward to avow my conviction of its truths, and my desire to assist by every legitimate means in their dissemination, I think it a duty to give my reasons for thus changing my opinions and practice.

In common with many of my professional brethren in Edinburgh, I questioned the possibility of the Homœopathic preparations containing any medicinal properties whatever; because, in the first place, the most carefully conducted chemical analysis failed to detect their presence, except, perhaps, in some few of the tinctures; and,

* By Charles Ransford, M.D., Edin., Fellow of and lately one of the Examiners in the Royal College of Physicians, Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons, formerly one of the Medical Officers of the Royal and Western Dispensaries, Secretary of the Anatomical and Obstetrical Societies, Member of the Medico-Chirurgical, Extraordinary Member and President of the Royal Medical and Harveian Societies of Edinburgh, Physician to the York Homœopathic Dispensary. Extracted from the "British Journal of Homœopathy." No. 37.

secondly, because, even if they did exist, so material and palpable did we erroneously suppose disease to be, it was impossible (so we argued) that substances so attenuated could exert any influence upon the human organism. Still, with all the apparent difficulties and absurdities (as we styled their doctrines), our patients resorted to these heretical practitioners-and generally assured us, to our ill-concealed mortification, that they received benefit at their hands. Notwithstanding our prognostications of the ephemeral nature of the system, it continued to increase in favour, and its disciples were to be found amongst the most intellectual and calm thinking members of society. We said one to another, what do these men give to their patients? One physician informed me that tartarised antimony in small doses, would act as a sufficient aperient, and doubtless that this was the preparation exhibited for the purpose in cases of constipated bowels. Ashamed am I to confess, that I and others utterly ignorant of the subject, and refusing to inform ourselves by actual experience, not merely suspected but asserted, that men of unimpeachable integrity gave ordinary drugs, under a feigned name, for the purpose of producing certain effects. In whatever else we differed, we cordially agreed in denouncing the entire system as quackery, delusion, and imposture, and, as a necessary consequence, excluded its professional advocates from our societies, whether scientific or social. We did not stop to ask, whether there was or was not truth in Hahnemann's proposition; if there existed a law for the administration of medicines; but our vials of wrath and contempt were poured upon the devoted heads of his followers, for the unpardonable innovation of administering drugs in inconceivably minute doses. We probably should not have evinced such an amount of irritation at the simple announcement similia similibus curantur; but to attempt to cure acute disease by such unheard of means was so ab

surd (thus we in our ignorance spoke and wrote), that none but fools or knaves would trouble themselves with the brief investigation necessary to prove the falsity of Hahnemann's notions. We never could separate Hahnemann's law from infinitesimal doses, although we might have been informed by a tyro in Homœopathy, that Hahnemann practised according to his promulgated law, for years ere he adopted the practice of minute doses. Without trying the effects of remedies upon this principle, we publicly declared the entire band of Homœopathic practitioners (most of whom held legal diplomas, many of them from our Alma Mater) as unworthy of our society; by these acts we virtually, if not really, asserted that they were banded together to propagate a delusion and a fraud. What a proof this was of our own extreme credulity! and of the "characteristic obstinacy of the medical profession."

The conscientious, highly educated, and accomplished follower of Hahnemann, whose only object was to substitute in therapeutics, certainty for uncertainty, order for confusion; this man, I repeat, was treated as a Pariah, an outcast. Homœopathy was always pronounced to be on the wane; nevertheless, we found to our cost that it took from us our best patients; we fondly hoped that these misguided people would after a little time return to their former orthodox creed and practice: but, no, they not only deserted us, our cathartics, sudorifics, alteratives, derivatives, blisterings, bleedings, et hoc genus omne; but, charmed with the superiority of their new favourite, in the most unkind manner, they persuaded others to follow their example. The Homœopathists were bold enough to open a dispensary, and, strange to behold, the poor flocked to it; we had comforted ourselves in the belief that, whatever whim the aristocracy might choose to pursue, the poor would certainly not become converts.

The young and talented members of our school of me

dicine embraced and enthusiastically advocated the principles and practices of Homœopathy, and asked us to explain how it was that the proportional recoveries of cases of Asiatic cholera and pneumonia (proved to be such, not merely by the advocates, but likewise by the opponents of Homœopathy), in Dr Fleischmann's hospital, at Vienna, so far outnumbered those of the Allopathic or old school practitioners. These figures were extremely awkward, we were comparatively powerless in the treatment of Asiatic cholera, at least in its advanced stages; whilst the Homœopathists were often successful. The Vienna hospital was a public institution; any physician might visit it, and not only ascertain the truth or falsehood of the statistical returns, but also see the effects of the infinitesimal doses. We would not be convinced. Not being able to deny the recoveries, we attributed them to the more healthy site of the hospital, the more abundant supply of attentive nurses and of comforts to the sick, and with these so-called reasons we dismissed the statistics of cholera. Those of pneumonia remain to be accounted for: we satisfied ourselves with asserting that Fleischmann was not skilled in auscultation, that slight cases of bronchitis would be set down as pneumonia and be classed amongst its cures. Mr Wilde, a surgeon, editor of the "Dublin Quarterly Journal," and author of the work, "Austria and its Institutions," who is not a Homœopathist, states that he witnessed the treatment of cases of pneumonia in Fleischmann's hospital, and that these cases were as acute and virulent, as those which had come under his observation elsewhere; that whilst the mortality for 1838 was not more than five or six per cent., three similar institutions on the Allopathic plan showed a mortality as high as from eight to ten per cent.

In answer to this, and the testimony of Dr Balfour, as published in the "British and Foreign Quarterly Review," we comforted ourselves that pneumonia was curable with