Quackery Unmasked/Chapter XX
CHAPTER XX.
CHRONO-THERMALISM.
Chrono-Thermalism is a recent form of medical quackery. The originator of this sect was Samuel Dickson, who was born in Edinburgh in 1802. He appears to have studied law some, and medicine some, and to have taken the degree of M.D. at Glasgow, at the age of about thirty. In 1836 he published his first Sketches of Chrono-Thermalism. In 1840 he commenced lecturing in London upon his new scheme. He soon drew around him great numbers anxious to find something new to feed their curiosity upon. His converts petitioned Parliament and obtained an act of incorporation for a Chrono-Thermal College. This novelty soon found advocates in France, Germany, Sweden, Prussia, and Denmark. The scheme was first introduced into the United States about twenty years ago. by Dr. William Turner, of the State of New York. The savans of that sect inform us that the characteristic appellation by which they choose to be known, is formed by connecting two Greek words: Chronos, meaning period, or time; and Therma, which signifies heat. These hitched together, with the addition of ism, make Chrono-Thermalism.
Their peculiar doctrines are, that disease is a unit, and that the human race is subject to only one disease, and that is Ague, or Intermittent Fever; that every other morbid manifestation is only another condition of the same affection; that the three stages observed in intermittent fever, if not so obvious in other forms, are nevertheless always present; that no morbid condition can exist without them; and that the proximate cause of disease is "a change of motion in the atoms of the organization, accompanied always by a change of temperature." The first stage of disease they call Depression, the second Accession, and the third Reaction. In the first, they suppose the organic atoms to be in a state of negative electricity; the second is the positive state; and the third is produced by the strugglings of the powers of life against the disease. They make use of many fine-spun theories, drawn from analogy, in support of their hypothetical doctrines, and at last they arrive at the conclusion, that the power of all medicinal agents is one and the same; and that this power is nothing more nor less than electricity, moving the body in some of its parts or atoms, either inwards or outwards. And by the law of elective affinity they assure us that their medicine is directly attracted by the part of the system most affected, and by moving its organic atoms in the right direction everything is soon set to rights and the patient cured. If it is asked by what means are their cures wrought, I answer in their own language: "Chrono-Thermalism rejects no earthly agent but the bleeding lancet, the leech, and the scarificator." According to their theory, all medicines possess electrical powers, and the beauty of their practice consists in using the right remedy at the exact moment, so that by its electrical force it may hurl the organic atoms from an abnormal to their normal condition. Hahnemann declared that the world was in ignorance and darkness until he came, and that Psora, or the common Itch, was the parent of nearly all chronic diseases. And now the advocates of Chrono-Thermalism tell us that the medical world was in thick darkness until Dickson came, and informed mankind that the human race is liable to only one disease, and that disease is always Ague, or Intermittent Fever.
Like every other species of quackery, Chrono-Thermalism boasts loudly of its unparalleled success, sets up the most dismal howlings against the regular profession, and declares that not many years will pass away ere the doctrine and practice of Chrono-Thermalism will become the dominant system throughout the civilized world. It asserts that if the regular faculty shall refuse to adopt their principles, it will be weighed in the scales of an enlightened and advanced public sentiment and found wanting, and that Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, will be written upon their college walls. If we may believe them, they have cast down their rod and it has become a, serpent, which like Aaron's of old is to swallow up all others. But, judging from present appearances, we are inclined to think that their hopes are not soon to be realized;—already its electric force appears to be nearly exhausted, and the time cannot be far distant when of all their proud schemes nothing will be left but the "baseless fabric of a vision." Sometimes fragments may be saved from empirical wrecks that may be turned to some good account, but we can see nothing in all this that is worth preserving.