Now, although the ages in the Prague hospital were much more unfavourable than ours, still it will be seen from the above tables that our percentage of recovery was generally very much more favourable in each decennial period. Moreover, it will be observed that the rapidity of the recovery was much greater in our hospital than in the Prague hospital.

With regard to the extent of the pneumonia, I find that in the Prague hospital the disease was limited to one lung in 50

cases, of whom 16 died,

in 12 cases, of whom 6 died,

32 per cent., it affected both lungs

50 per cent.

In our hospital we had 77 single, and 15 double pneumonias; of the former there died 3,

3 per cent., of the latter also 3,

It will thus be evident that in every way the results obtained by homœopathy were very greatly superior.*

* We pass over the discussion on the treatment of cholera. Dr. Eigenbrodt, utterly forgetful of the exigences of a scientific consideration of the matter, compares the results obtained in the homeopathic hospital, with sundry reports gathered from various periodicals, of the result said to have been obtained, in private practice chiefly, by various practitioners in Trieste, Berlin, Hull, London, any where, in fact, but in Vienna. Now, when it is known how different the intensity of the cholera is in different places, at different periods of the disease, in different classes of society, &c., and how much greater the mortality usually is in hospitals than in private practice, it is evident that to act as Eigenbrodt does, is to abandon altogether scientific discussion, and to resort to mere pettifogging quibbles in order to get up the semblance of a case against homoeopathy. Dr. Caspar brings back the discussion within its legitimate bounds, and shews by a series of statistical tables that the homœopathic treatment was infinitely more successful in every way in the treatment of cholera, when compared with allopathic treatment under similar circumstances. We shall likewise pass over the discussion Eigenbrodt raises with respect to the homœopathic treatment of incurable diseases; the chief point in which is his reference to the famous case of Marshal Radetzky, and his utter perversion of the facts connected with it. Caspar, as usual, sets him right here. The discussion upon intermittent fever which Dr. Eigenbrodt next raises, offers not sufficient interest to detain us. We recommend our readers to peruse what Wurmb and Caspar said on that subject in their Studien (Vide this Journal, vol. XIII, p. 419). Eigenbrodt makes no comparison of the homœopathic with that of any allopathic hospital, so that we have no opportunity of comparing the relative success of the two treatments. It is, in fact, a very difficult disease for comparison, for, as it partakes more of the nature of a chronic disease than of an acnte, in order to come to a just idea of the relative success of the two treatments, it would be requisite to follow the cases for a long time after their dismissal from hospital to ascertain if the cure was permanent, or if it merely consisted in a suppression of the fits, which either returned after a time, or the malady took a new phase. We omit the controversy raised by Dr. Eigenbrodt relative to the treatment of delirium tremens, chlorosis, tape-worm, cutaneous discases, and syphilis, because so few of these cases occurred in Wurmb and Caspar's hospital, that they could form no data for a comparison with other treatment. Indeed, of syphilis no case occurred, and Eigenbrodt adduces the testimony of that very

E-I admit that homoeopathy has made a considerable number of converts amongst both medical and non-medical persons; but I believe the chief reasons why it has done so are, the abuse of drugs by practitioners of the old school, and a certain mysterious nimbus of secresy that envelopes it. But though I consider it utterly false and illusory, I would not, on that account, endeavour to suppress it, or persecute its partisans in any way. Experience shows that the more freedom has been accorded to homœopathy the less it has been able to obtain proselytes. Thus, since chairs of homoeopathy have been founded in Vienna and Prague, homoeopathy has constantly decreased in public estimation. Publicity, in fact, appears to be fatal to the spread of homœopathy.

C. I will not deny that homoeopathy is indebted for part of its rapid progress to the fearful abuse that has been and still is made of drugs in your school. But I utterly deny that homoeopathy has ever affected any mystery or secresy; on the contrary, the labours of many of its partisans have been directed to popularize a knowledge of it. I also deny that it has lost by the recent favour that has been shewn to it by the government; on the contrary, I can assure you, that since the establishment of our hospital and chair, from sixty to seventy medical men have resorted to it for instruction. Of these, from twenty-five to thirty are now practising in the provinces, about twenty in Germany, France, England and America, at least ten have settled down in Vienna as practitioners, and most of them enjoy considerable practice, although that of their older homœopathic colleagues has increased also in proportion. It is, moreover, notorious, that many of the old school practitioners employ frequently homoeopathic remedies. Homœopathy begins now to be introduced into government establishments, as, for example, the hospitals attached to the prisons of Stein and Neudorf.

We must now bring this rather long article to a close, and respectable individual Dr. Fickel, of swindling notoriety, as to the results of the homeopathic treatment of that disease. We must not omit to mention that Dr. Caspar gives very satisfactory answers to all Eigenbrodt's objections on the subject of these diseases.

VOL. XV., NO. LXI.-JULY 1857.

2 I

we trust we have shewn by the abstract of the controversy of of Drs. Eigenbrodt and Caspar,* that homoeopathy does not deserve the hard epithets applied to it by Sir John Forbes. So far is it from being the case, that "this do-nothing system," as Sir John calls it, "falls very far below that of [sic] the rational practice of rational medicine, in its curative results" (p. 161); on the contrary, it rises very far above any method of treatment it has ever been compared with. Our opponents seem sensible of this, for they have altogether abandoned comparing the homoeopathic with any variety of "rational" treatment. Their last"dodge" is to compare homoeopathic with expectant or do-nothing treatment, and if, by much ingenuity, they can succeed in so exaggerating the success of the latter, and impugning the recorded results of homoeopathic treatment, as that they shall appear nearly equal on paper, they exclaim-see, your boasted homoeopathic treatment is no better than no treatment at all; how much inferior must it therefore be to good rational treatment. Thus Eigenbrodt: Thus Eigenbrodt: "the results of the homoeopathic method are at best the same as those of the expectant treatment, but are much inferior to those of other active methods." Dr. Dietl has saved us the trouble of proving that no treatment at all is better than allopathic treatment (by bloodletting and by Tartar emetic), in one of the acute diseases that was most thought to require active treatment, and accordingly our opponents now pit us against Dr. Dietl and no

* We would observe here, that in our opinion the practice of Drs. Wurmb and Caspar in their hospital does not fairly exhibit all that homœopathy can do in the diseases they treated. Their self-imposed rule, to prescribe nothing but the 30th dilution, trammelled their operations and deprived them of the advantage they might have often derived from an administration of the remedies in dilutions more appropriate to the cases. This rule at the same time, we readily allow, had one advantage, that of proving that the 30th dilution can cure diseases; but we believe it to have been disadvantageous if the question meant to be solved had been-how much can homœopathy effect in diseases? And, for this reason, we believe the results in Dr. Wurmb's hospital-extremely favourable though they were-were not the best for comparison with those of allopathic treatment. We regard Wurmb and Caspar's practice more in the light of a valuable experiment demonstrating the power of the 30th dilution, than an exhibition of the full value of the homoeopathic treatment.

treatment, giving the world to understand that their "rational" treatment is infinitely better than Dietl and homoeopathy. We acknowledge the prudence of this course, but cannot say much for its ingenuousness. Our opponents discreetly keep their wonderful rational system in the background, and will not venture on a comparison of it with ours. What it is, this rational system, they are not even agreed among themselves. Our two opponents, who have given rise to this article, are evidently not at one on the subject; for while Eigenbrodt's superior method is "active treatment," Sir John denounces active treatment as injurious, and insists that the rational method is inactive expectancy. It is, however, only vaguely that any indication is given of this admirable system of treatment. Perhaps it exists only in name, like the Mrs. Harris of that exemplary woman Sairey Gamp. Until it is produced, however, we may be allowed to doubt its existence altogether; as the said Sairey's bosom friend, Betsy Prig, doubted the corporeal reality of the awful Mrs. Harris.

The True Art of Healing: a Discourse on the Rational System of Medicine.-By THOMAS K. CHAMBERS, F.R.C.P. Lecturer on Medicine at St. Mary's Hospital. London: Churchill, 1856.

In the far West of the great Metropolis a huge square brick building, modelled apparently architecturally after a Manchester warehouse of the primitive type, rears itself in lofty state above the surrounding houses. An inscription on the front tells the passer by that this is "St. Mary's Hospital," and the circulars state that it is "supported by voluntary contributions ;" but this assertion is, alas! as false as was ever the record on a tombstone, In spite of gigantic efforts made by the committee; in spite of their "house to house visitation" in the parishes of Paddington and Marylebone, to extort donations from the unwilling pockets of the lukewarm parishioners; in spite of mellifluous sermons from episcopal dignitaries from every pulpit in the district, termi