DEDICATION

To The Medical Profession.

To you - whose lives are devoted to the application of scientific knowledge - whose interests are involved in embracing Truth and rejecting Error - whose feelings are often tortured at the bed of sickness, by the inefficiency of your present remedial means; - to you I venture to dedicate this work, the earnest hope that it may attract your attention to the practical and all-important truths contained in the doctrines of Hahnemann; - truths which it is the object of the following pages to illustrate.

Homoeopathy froms a new era in Medical Science, destined, I believe, to dispel the darkness, errors, and uncertainty in which Therapeutics have been hitherto enveloped. Its principles is a law of nature, unerring and immutable:- a principle on which alone can be established the future of progress and improvement of the healing art.

The leading and peculiar features of Homoeopathy are these:-

That the pathogenic power of each medicine is fully and clearly ascertained by experiments upon healthy persons.

That by the law "Similia Similibus," the physician is directed with certainty to the choice of the remedy suited to the cure of the disease.

That the laborious process of trituration in preparing the medicines increases all their known properties, and develops a multitude of others not previously ascertained to exist in them.

That only one medicinal substance is administered at one time.

That extremely minute doses - so minute as usually to be denominated "Infinitesimal Doses" - are experimentally proved, beyond doubt, to be most potent in their effects upon disease.

Hahnemann has also revealed to the medical world a new theory of the remote causes of chronic maladies; and has taught, not only the means of alleviating the sufferings arising from them, but of frequently effecting a radical cure. Is is therefore unreasonable to anticipate the ultimate extinction of hereditary diseases, by the destruction of the miasmata which engender them?

The Materia Medica is already enriched with nearly 200 different medicines, the properties of which have been minutely and carefully registered.

Such are discoveries made by Hahnemann: the result of years of persevering experiment and research, verified by the daily evidence of several hundred homoeopathic physicians, upon the continent, by the few who reside in this country. To these discoveries I invite - nay more, I entreat - the attention and consideration of my medical brethren.

I do not require you to assent to a single proposition, without the most rigid investigation; but I do ask you fairly to examine, to scrutinise, and to test by actual experiment the homoeopathic doctrines, instead of contemptuously rejecting them without trial, and condemning them without proof.

My object in thus urging you to the enquiry cannot, I trust, be attributed to interested or unworthy motives. It arises solely from a sincere and ardent desire for the advancement of science; for the benefit of mankind; for infusing the conscious feeling of satisfaction which every benevolent mind must experience in being enabled to alleviate the sufferings of humanity, by means at once mild, rapid, effectual, and, above all, unproductive of evil consequences.

I shall consider myself fortunate if you, my professional brethren, will deign to accept the dedication of this work, as a proof of my heartfelt desire to see enlightened members of so liberal a profession enter upon this path in pursuit of rational and scientific medicine.

Paul F. Curie Formerly surgeon in the Military Hospital of Paris; Member of the Parisian Homoeopathic and Gallican Societies; Physician to the London Homoeopathic Dispensary, Author of "Principles of Homoeopathy", etc.. London: 30, Brook Street, Grosvenor Square June, 1st, 1838