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    readers abreast of all the great movements going on around us , that this test is already applicable to Homoeopathy , the professed reformation of medicine by Hahnemann and his followers . Homoeopathy may be said to have begun with the present century ; for , although the " Organon of the Healing Art" was not published till 1810 , Hahnemann had been seized by the idea which dominated over his long life so early as 1790 , and he had sent forth several distinctly homoeopathic tracts , as well as

    won himself some disciples , by 1800 . During these fifty years Homoeopathy has been steadily fighting its way into public estimation . To say nothing , at present , of the medical men who have devoted themselves to its practice and carrying forward , the laity of every land and of every class have gradually lent it their confidence in great numbers . It has adherents in almost every city of any consequence on the continent of Europe . It flourishes in the United States of America : it has

    actually built itself a college in Pennsylvania . In Great Britain the number of patients ready to trust themselves to homoeopathic treatment is so large , that there are already upwards of one hundred and fifty practitioners , all either regularly licensed as surgeons , or possessing orthodox degrees in medicine . Yet Homoeopathy was all but unknown in this country so lately as 1830 . Now it is practised extensively in London , at Manchester , Liverpool , Leeds , Cheltenham , Hull , Brighton , Clifton , and , in fact , more or less all over England . It is proportionally successful in getting a footing in

    Scotland and Ireland . It seems also that , as soon as Homoeopathy penetrates to a new station , it opens a dispensary for the poor . There are two homoeopathic hospitals in London , one at Manchester ; and they are moving for the opening of one at Edinburgh . In short , Homoeopathy is already a power , in this as well as in other countries . Be it right or wrong , be it a truth or only a half-truth , it has got itself established silently , slowly , perhaps surely . It cannot be ignored by the public , by the medical profession , or by the journalist any longer .

    Nor do the lay-friends of this system prove to be obscure and unlettered . Archbishop Whately , the Chevalier Bunsen , and Principal Scott of Owen ' s College constitute a trio of its literary adherents . Messrs . Cobden , Leslie , and Wilson are fair examples of its parliamentary partisans . Ra- ' detzky , Pulzsky , and General Farquharson rank among its numerous military defenders . Messrs . Leaf , Sugden , and Forbes are three of its great merchants . The Duke of Hamilton and the Earls

    of Wilton , Erne , Shrewsbury , and Denbigh ( to say nothing of Lords Newport , Robert Grosvenor , and Kinnaird ) may serve for its body-guard of honour . Queen Adelaide was its patient ; and the Duchess of Kent is the patroness of a great bazaar to be held for its behoof in London next June , during the thick of the exhibition . Even Jenny Lind is its votary . In conclusion of the whole

    matter , it is clear that homoeopathy not only spreads apace , but it also spreads in all sorts of good directions , through the present fabric of society . And this fact certainly conveys the idea to the mind of an unbiassed journalist , if not to a more learned medical head , that there must be some sort of truth in Homoeopathy ; whether pure or mixed , whether negative or affirmative , whether critical of something old or declaratory of something new .

    The character of the lay-adherents of Homoeopathy is a voucher for the general character of its practitioners amongst us . They must be gentlemen and men of some science , as indeed is proved by their licenses and degrees from the ( so-called ) orthodox quarters . For our own parts we have found homoeopath izing doctors as well-bred , as learned , and as capable as their allopathic brethren . in other sci

    They do not distinguish themselves - ences ; but that is not to be expected . You do not a « k the Lavoisierian chemist to be great in natural history , nor the Copernican astronomer to excel in chemistry . Ne sutor ultra cremdam—every man to his department . The allopathic physician immersed in practice , does not win a name elsewhere any more than the homoeopath ; and , from the nature of the case , all the homoeopaths arc

    practical physicians . But there is another way of trying the m ettle of thiu young school of doctors , and that is the study of their writings in their own brunch . Nor were it fair to judge them by such larger or smaller brochures as enthusiastic converts are apt to throw oil iu order to vindicate their new allegiance . Let them be judged by the works which the best of them p roduce ' in the maturity of their powers and their

    experience . Let them be judged even by the average quality of the articles published , from quarter to quarter , during the last ten years in the British Homoeopathic Journal . This is not the place to enter into such an inquiry of course ; but the very existence of such a ground of challenge is a proof that the numerous medical disciples of Hahnemann are not below the general run of their opponents in intellectual standing ; and that is an additional presumption in favour of there being something or other in homoeopathy , which will be propagating itself , and indeed which cannot die because it is true .

    These two kinds of presumptive evidence , the one popular and the other professional , are certainly strong enough to suggest and enforce an inquiry into the character and manner of life of the master-mind , that originated and drove forward this whole movement . We say master-mind , and that before adding a word more about him , for only such a mind could possibly have produced such effects as have already been alluded to . Only

    a master-mind , were it even another Lucifer in the sinister sense of that classic name , could have drawn so many of his younger brethren to his standard , created a new body of scientific literature , and made so extensive and profound an impression on the world at large . And this mastermind appears to have been every way worthy of so vigorous an embodiment , and so lifelike a perpetuation in the annals of medical history .

    Apart from his especial distinction , Samuel Hahnemann soon promised to be a man of mark and likelihood . His father , being but a drawer of designs on porcelain , was about to take him from the Meissen high school before he had entered the upper classes ; but the masters would not let him go . They kept him till the end of the curriculum without receiving fees . At twenty years of age he went to study medicine at Leipzig , with only twenty crowns in his purse . But the good offices of his former teachers got him free admission to the majority of the classes ; and he won himself a living

    by the teaching of Greek and French , and by the translation of English works into the German tongue . Having studied another year at Vienna , Dr . Quarin got him the situation of a family doctor at Hermannstadt , where he also practised out of doors , and that so successfully as to be able , in a year and a half , to study another year at Erlangen , and take his degree . He was then district physician at Gommern for nearly three years ; but the uncertainty of practical medicine inflicted . such daily pain upon him that he threw up his place , betook himself to Dresden , and hoped to live by the use of his pen .

    At the request of Dr . Wagner , however , and with the consent of the town council , he first undertook the entire direction of the Dresden Hospital for a year ; after which he removed to Leipzig , where his dissatisfaction with the art and trade of healing diseases became so unmitigable that he abandoned it altogether , and occupied himself with chemistry and authorship . It was during this sorrowful , conscientious , and brave withdrawal from the

    public life of his profession—a profession , too , in which he was notoriously eminent even thus early in his career—that he perceived and caught at the conception of Homoeopathy . It was during this retirement from opening wealth and distinction to comparative poverty and obscurity , that he was visited by the idea to which he dedicated the rest of his long and laborious life . He was thirty-five at this time , the age at which Dante began his

    poem . There is nothing like unseemly haste or overweaning self-seeking in this preparatory portion of a great course . It is rather remarkable for the very opposite qualities . Early poverty nobly borne and baffled , undeniable industry and attainment , favour with men of science and the public around him , rare sensibility and conscientiousness , self-sacrifice and voluntary poverty , and the consigning of himself to the doing of honest literary work for bread and salt , seem to bo an admirable series of

    antecedents , in the life of a discoverer , to the rising of some new orb of truth upon his soul . One feels as if it were certain that any scientific conviction , capable of seizing and quickening ho gifted and resolute u man , must be more or less legitimate . Well , he gave himself over for better for worse to this conviction ; elaborated it with amuzing industry ; expounded it with unequalled erudition , with clearneHH , with ingenuity , with yearning earnestness , and with solid eloquence ; and established it iu the world , as we lrnvc seen , in spite of coldness , apathy , enmity , slander , and persecution .

    Thereis no need of analyzing his proper homoeopathic orbit more minutely , for some readers might contend that it is yet subjudice ; but the unquestioned and unquestionable facts contained in the character of Hahnemann before his new idea , in the respectability of his medical disciples , and in the varied host of his lay-adherents , do certainly constitute an irrefragable proof that Homoeopathy is no mere delusion and monstrous birth of the passing time . It is right that this much at least be frankly said for Homoeopathy in an organ like the Leader , which professes to give fair play to every great question under heaven , and which has hitherto stood to its profession without alienating " those of the opposite faction . " Besides , the question of Homoeopathy has a popular aspect as well as a purely technical one . People have to choose their doctors ; and a momentous choice it generally is . It also becomes the man of intelligence to know something of the grounds on which his neighbour ' s decision rests ; while it surely behoves every reader , especially of a leading periodical , to be informed of all the very notable movements of the pregnant century in which he lives . We shall therefore return to this subject in a future number ; although not prepared either to support or to assail Homoeopathy in the gross .

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    INDUSTRIAL , ASSOCIATION . Suggestions for the Establishment of an Industrial Association , in connection with National Schools , as a Preventive of Crime , Vagrancy ^ and Pauperism , resultine , after a series of years , in a Reduction of t ' oor Hales to the extent of Seventy per Cent , as shown in Tables illustrating the Design . By the Rev llichard Jervis Staiham , B . A ., Hector ot Tarporley , Cheshire . J . W . Parker Consciousness of the fearful amount of ignorance , poverty , and crime , which the apathy of former ages and the religious contentions of the present have suffered to accumulate , has produced its natural effect upon the minds of all who are not distracted from its contemplation by constant occupation , or steeled against the painful reflections which arise from it by constant familiarity . The certainty that , week after week , thousands are added to the teeming population of our towns , without adequate provision , or even an approach to it , for their training in those habits by which alone their usefulness to their country , or even their existence compatibly with its safety , can be assured , and that among the more sparse inhabitants of our rural districts the intellect remains unenlightened , and the heart untouched , —this certainty has stirred up at length a spirit which will not be set at rest until means are found

    to remedy the existing evil , and prevent its recurrence in the future . All who have to do with the poorer classes of society , —the political and social reformer , the philanthropist , and the minister of religion , are painfully impressed with this consciousness , every step they take in their efforts in the service of mankind . One labours for the emancipation of the many , and bids them earn the franchise by proving themselves worthy of it ; an enlightened portion gladly receive his exhortations and his aid , and work with him to gain their rights . A fearfully large number turn coldly away , unable to appreciate the value of political freedom , or preferring a transient seneual gratification to its achievement , because that achievement will involve self denial and exertion .

    Another wishes to point out the way in which by concert and economy of means and labour , the many may raise themselves from the condition of mere workers to that of associated capitalists , themselves the rewarders of their own toil and partakers of its fruits . A chosen ivxv respond to his aspirations , but on the rest no impression is made . They do not comprehend the causes of the evils which they feel , nor the nature of the proposed remedy ; they are content with things as they are with themselves , and as they have heen with their fathers before them ; and they go on in the same state of disunion and want of concert which causes their preNent weakness , and which , while it lasts , will ensure its perpetuation .

    The same want of success , and from the same cause , attends the efforts of those who are forward in the work of sanitary and educational reform . The best men from among the many gladly avail themselves of our baths and vvashhoiiHCH , our model lodging-houses , our mechanics' institutes and literary societies , our benefit clubs and associations for mutual aid ; but there are thousands whose sanitary condition must he improved in spite of themselves ; who are , unconscious of tlie advantages offered them , and on whom they are , consequently , thrown away . And , not to

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    April 19 , 1851 . ] IE ft * & £ && £ ?? S 69

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 19, 1851, page 369, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1879/page/15/