Personal Experience of a Physician | Page 2

can try them for yourself."
Here was a dilemma. Never until that hour had I ever heard
homoeopathy spoken of, by either a medical professor or one of my
professional brethren, except with contempt and ridicule. "But," I said
to myself, "if there is any truth in homoeopathy I ought to know it, and
I cannot treat this physician's testimony with contempt; and it is a duty
which I owe to my fellow-men, and especially to my patients, to
investigate the new system carefully." I immediately went and
purchased the books, and he give me six bottles of medicine, and I took
them back with me to Chesterfield. I remember making but one
Homoeopathic prescription before leaving Chesterfield, and that was
for a case of uterine hemorrhage, which I had treated unsuccessfully for
some time with allopathic remedies. I looked over my Homoeopathic
books carefully and found that China (cinchona) was indicated. As that
remedy was not among the bottles of medicated pellets which my
medical friend had given me, I directed that one drop of the ordinary
tincture of Peruvian bark should be dropped into a glass of water, and
that, after stirring it well, one teaspoonful of the solution thus made
should be given three or four times a day. The patient commenced
improving immediately, and was soon well.
Soon after that I removed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and commenced
anew the practice of medicine. I then had neither the knowledge nor the
faith in homoeopathy which I thought would justify me in treating any
serious case of disease with homoeopathic remedies; but I did not
neglect to study the new books. One day, a friend of my younger days,
who was residing at Grand Haven, came into my office and said that he
had been suffering from the toothache for several days, and that he did
not like to have the tooth extracted, and he wanted to know if I could
do anything for it without extracting it. I told him that I had recently
obtained some homoeopathic books and remedies, and that I had
noticed that remedies were spoken of for toothache. So I looked over
my books and selected Belladonna as the remedy suitable in his case,
and gave him a dose of it and other doses to take with him if he needed

them. We talked in the office for a short time, and then we walked up to
the hotel where he was stopping; as we entered, he stood still a moment
and remarked: "Well, my tooth does not ache as severely as it did." I
saw him weeks afterward, and he told me that he had not had the
toothache from the hour he took the medicine.
Away in that new place, then a village of about one thousand
inhabitants, with no homoeopathic physician within a hundred miles of
me, I commenced cautiously the use of the new remedies; first in mild
cases of disease, and in cases where Allopathic treatment failed to
produce the desired effect. Among the first of the serious cases where I
used the remedies was a case of pneumonia. A young man had been
very sick with that disease for many days. I had resorted vigorously to
the antiphlogistic treatment then in vogue; a consulting physician was
called, and at last we told the family that our patient could not live until
the next morning. I then said to the consulting physician: "I have some
homoeopathic remedies; suppose we try them?" His reply was: "It does
not make any difference what you try; he will not live until morning."
Under such circumstances I felt that I was justified in trying the new
remedies. I accordingly dissolved a few pellets of Aconite in a glass of
water, and of Bryonia alb. in another glass of water, and directed that a
teaspoonful of the solution of Aconite should be given once an hour for
five hours, and that a similar dose of Bryonia be given instead of
Aconite every sixth hour. I sat down by his bedside and watched his
case for two hours. At the end of that period I found that his pulse was
five beats less frequent in a minute, and that his breathing was a little
easier. The next morning all of his dangerous symptoms had
disappeared, and in a reasonable period of time he was restored to
health. I talked with the consulting physician about his unexpected
recovery, and we were, disposed to think that we had made a false
prognosis, and that he would have recovered any way. Still, the case
made some impression on me; so that in the next case of pneumonia to
which I was called, I resolved to try the same remedies in the same way.
The patient was a