Personal Experience of a Physician | Page 4

form, in the treatment of
these fevers, than with it; and I soon ceased to use brandy, wine, beer,
etc.
As to Quinine, that remedy will unquestionably interrupt the paroxysms
of intermittent and remittent fevers promptly if it is given at the proper
time and in suitable doses; and, if the attack is the first the patient has

ever had, a return of the disease may at least sometimes be prevented
by giving once a week in two or three doses, at an interval of twelve
hours, about the quantity which would be required to interrupt the
disease in the first instance. These doses should be given the day before
the disease is expected to return. I found it much better to give about
two large doses of quinine than to give the same quantity in 1 or 2 grain
doses. I reported the results of my experiments and observations in the
use of Quinine at Grand Rapids to the New York Journal of Medicine
(allopathic). In all instances where life is in danger from a return of a
paroxysm of intermittent or remittent fever, the patient can be rescued
from immediate danger by giving Quinine in doses sufficient to prevent
a return of the paroxysm. In all other cases, and perhaps even in such,
we can rely safely on homoeopathic remedies in minute doses. Quinine
in Allopathic doses will rarely cure the disease, excepting, it may be, as
named above, in a first attack. If the patient has ever had more than one
or two attacks, it is almost sure to return again and again for two
seasons, complicated with symptoms caused by the remedy, in spite of
Allopathic doses of quinine; whereas by treating the patient
homoeopathically, except in old cases, you will not suddenly interrupt
the paroxysms, for they may continue one or two weeks, or even a few
days longer, but when they cease there is generally the end of the
disease, and the patient speedily regains his ordinary state of health
instead of lingering along with frequent returns of the disease for
generally two seasons, as he does when quinine is used. Old cases of
intermittent fever are frequently cured promptly by infinitesimal doses
of homoeopathic remedies. I have never seen Allopathic doses of
Quinine do any good in typhoid fevers. And, as to the use of cathartics,
from my observation I soon became satisfied that a vast number of
lives have been lost by their use in cases of remittent and typhoid
fevers, the tendency to irritation of the mucous membrane, which exists
especially in the latter disease, being often fatally aggravated by
cathartic remedies.
I found the prejudice so strong against homoeopathy when I
commenced my investigations, that I generally said nothing about the
kind of remedies I was using, and sometimes disguised the remedies by
mixing with sugar or pulverized liquorice root, or by mixing or

dissolving them in water.
I have given the above details to show how carefully and patiently, step
by step, I commenced my investigations, and watched the action of
remedies when given in accordance with the Homoeopathic law of cure,
and compared the results with the results which followed the use of
Allopathic remedies.
I remained at Grand Rapids two years. During that period I gradually
substituted the Homoeopathic treatment of diseases for the Allopathic,
as fast as I found I could cure the various diseases which came under
my observation with more safety and certainty by the former method of
treatment than by the latter.
Now I ask the intelligent, conscientious, and philanthropic reader, Did I
do right or did I do wrong in thus investigating homoeopathy and using
cautiously the remedies for the cure of the sick, as I found them more
efficacious and safe than the remedies which I had been taught to use
and had used previously? If it was my duty to thus critically examine
the new method of treatment, when my attention was seriously called to
it, and to cautiously try the remedies on the sick, is it not clearly the
duty of every Allopathic physician in our land to do the same? To thus
earnestly call the attention of physicians of every school to the
importance of investigating homoeopathy, and carefully using the
remedies for the cure of the sick, and to entreat them not to stop and be
satisfied with crude doses, such as drop doses of tinctures and the first,
second or third dilutions or triturations of remedies, as some have done,
is my sole object in writing these pages. The most decided and
satisfactory cures which I have ever witnessed have been effected by
the thirtieth and two hundredth dilutions. But, according to my
experience, it is not well to confine one's self absolutely to either high
or low