Quackery Unmasked/Chapter XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ALLOPATHY.
Homœopathists and other empirical sects are wont to talk loudly about Allopathy. The term, when applied to the regular medical profession, is a misnomer, and is used by way of reproach and in order to place regular physicians before the public in the same category with charlatans and mountebanks. The legitimate profession repudiates the term, and scorns the proffered alliance. Every empirical sect takes the liberty to select the name by which its members choose to be known, and we find no fault with that, however inappropriate or false their chosen cognomen may be; but when they insist upon giving scientific medicine an empirical name, placing it astride a false hobby, and enrolling it in the regiment of pathies and isms, we positively refuse compliance. She has no alliance with that marauding army. She has never adopted any exclusive motto. Her methods of cure include all such rational means as science and experience have shown to be of value. She does not attempt to cure one disease by creating another, as the term Allopathy implies, but to aid the inherent powers of the organism in removing and overcoming all disease, so far as that is possible, and in protecting the system against the injurious effects of morbid agents. If empirics of all kinds, names and grades, should see fit to form one regiment, and tune their bass drums, tin kettles, French horns, and Yankee pumpkin vines, to one syren chorus, no honorable man will interfere with the arrangement. They may cousin and cozen each other to their hearts' content, for aught we care; but the standard of legitimate medicine will never be unfurled in that troop.
The term Regular is sometimes applied to physicians, in the room of Allopathic, and ignorant men often endeavor to persuade the public that all medical science is confined to old fashioned stationary dogmas. This is wholly untrue. The science of Medicine, like the science of Philosophy, Astronomy, Chemistry or Geology, embraces all the truths that have been gleaned from the past and all the knowledge of the present time, and is ever looking forward to the future. Medicine is studied, not like a dead language, but as a progressive art, in which continual improvements are made; and he who does not so study and so practise it, neglects his duty to himself, his profession, and the community to which he belongs. Strictly speaking, the word Regular might as well be applied to clergymen and lawyers, as physicians. When a man, who is otherwise qualified, has enjoyed and rightly improved the proper advantages of study and instruction in the science of law, he is admitted to the Bar and becomes a regular attorney. So when an individual has enjoyed the opportunities necessary to qualify him to practise medicine, and is found upon examination to be so qualified, he is admitted and becomes a regular physician. In both instances, the regulations have been provided to protect the public against unworthy and incompetent men. Reason and experience show this to be a salutary regulation; and instead of striving to weaken and break it down, the public should endeavor to strengthen it and raise it still higher.
We do not pretend that there are no quacks or unworthy individuals who leap over those bounds, nor that all who are included within the pale of the legitimate profession are every way worthy of confidence, nor that physicians are free from the common intellectual and moral delinquencies incident to mankind. Indeed, none are infallible—the best may sometimes err. But the profession, notwithstanding its imperfections and short comings, is of immense importance to the public, and we invoke the assistance of all good citizens to aid in building up, improving and protecting an enlightened and reliable medical profession.