Personal Experience of a Physician | Page 6

examining her symptoms carefully I gave her a single dose of Sulphur,
200th dilution; at the end of a week she was better, at the end of
another week much better, and at the end of the third week she had but
few symptoms remaining, for which I gave only one dose of Arsenicum,
200th, which completed the cure.
Having practiced medicine for two years at Grand Rapids, I spent a
winter East and visited New York, making the Acquaintance of
Homoeopathic physicians, and conversing with them about the new
system of treating disease, attending medical lectures and clinics at the
two Allopathic colleges. I remember very well attending a clinic at the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, held by the late Prof. Willard

Parker, when a little child was brought in suffering from whooping
cough. Prof. Parker, looking around upon the students, said: "Here,
gentlemen, is a case of disease which, like the small-pox, measles, and
scarlet fever, runs a definite course; if you will let the patients alone
they will generally get well, but if you commence dosing them you will
often bring on complications and they will die." This statement, coming
from a medical man of his prominence, surely was worthy of
consideration.
After spending the winter at the East I went to Detroit, Mich., and
opened an office in connection with Dr. P. M. Wheaton. I practiced in
Detroit for fifteen years, excepting that during the last six years of that
time I spent a part of each year at Cleveland, giving a course of lectures
on the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Western Homoeopathic
Medical College, of Cleveland, Ohio.
When I went to Detroit the prejudice against homoeopathy was very
strong, especially among physicians. An attempt was made to pass a
bill through the Legislature of Michigan which would virtually prohibit
the practice in the State. The bill passed the Senate, but, owing to the
prompt action of the friends of homoeopathy in exposing the design of
the advocates of the bill, it was defeated in the House of
Representatives. The presence of the Asiatic cholera in 1849 in the city,
and the success which attended the homoeopathic treatment of that
disease, was instrumental in calling the attention of large numbers of
the most intelligent and influential citizens to the new practice and
establishing it upon a firm basis. When the disease first appeared in the
city, we furnished the families which we were accustomed to attend,
and all others who desired them, with Veratrum album and Cuprum
metallicum, which had been earnestly recommended by Homoeopathic
physicians elsewhere, who had had experience in treating the disease,
as preventive remedies, a dose or two of each to be taken daily. As a
result, very few among the families which we were accustomed to
attend were attacked with the disease, and in such cases as occurred the
disease was generally readily controlled. As a rule, the most
troublesome cases which we had to treat were those in which Opium or
morphine in some form had been administered before we were called.

In such cases it was exceedingly difficult to get a satisfactory response
from our remedies, however carefully we selected them.
The Asiatic cholera is a violent disease and rapid in its progress, and if
severe cases of this disease are to be treated successfully, it must be by
remedies which are prompt in their action. It is here that homoeopathic
remedies show their superiority over all other remedies or methods of
treatment, for they act upon the diseased organs in the direction of the
disease, and thus excite a prompt reaction. Homoeopathic remedies,
when properly used, do not benumb, nor do they seriously aggravate
existing diseased action; and they neither cause diseased action in well
organs, nor reduce the quantity of blood, nor lessen the vitality of the
organism and the ability to react against the encroachment of diseased
action, as does the allopathic treatment; and, consequently, if a patient
dies the physician and his friends have the consolation, at least, of
knowing that he did not die from the treatment.
I well remember, while practicing in Detroit, attending a prominent
citizen, a lawyer, who had a severe attack of pneumonia; and, while
recovering from it, he went one night into a cold room to sleep, and this
brought on a relapse which involved both lungs, and my patient became
very sick. One day on visiting him I found an Allopathic physician
sitting by his bedside. I was told that he simply called as a friend. As I
entered he arose and walked out into the hall. I followed him, and asked
him what he thought of my patient. He replied very promptly: "He will
die! he will die, sir!! He ought to have been bled,