ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

gratitude. After the guard and the first and fourth corps had passed the river, one of the temporary bridges broke down under the weight of some heavy guns, and at the same moment Wittgenstein's corps of Russians attacked the rearguard, and poured a heavy fire of shot and shell upon the immense crowd pressing in disorder towards the remaining bridge. Soldiers, camp-followers, women and children, were crushed together in a confused mass, with wagons, guns, and horses, or forced into the water. Larrey had repassed the second bridge, to seek some cases of instruments of surgery, of which he had great need for the wounded. It, too, broke down; and in his attempt to return he was at the point of perishing in the crowd, when, he says, 'happily I was recognised; instantly every one hastened to favour my efforts; passed by the soldiers from hand to hand, I found myself, to my great surprise, in a few moments on the bridge. This proof they gave me of their attachment, under such circumstances, soon made me forget both the dangers I had incurred, and the loss I had sustained.'"

WATERLOO, AND HIS FLIGHT FROM THENCE.

"Larrey performed many operations on the day of Waterloo, and continued his labours until the English cavalry charged up to his field-hospital, and the daylight failed, when he found himself obliged to follow the advice which the Emperor sent to him by an aide-de-camp, to make for the frontier by a certain cross-road. Scarcely had they proceeded a league or two, when their retreat was cut off by a body of Prussian lancers. I marched,' he says, 'at the head of my little company, and in the persuasion that our enemies were not numerous, I did not hesitate to force a passage, sword in hand. Having fired both my pistols upon the horsemen who stopped our way, I made a lane, through which my companions and my servant passed at full gallop, but my horse, wounded by a ball, fell, and, at the same moment, I received a double sabre cut on the head and left shoulder, which brought me senseless to the ground.' The Prussians left him, to follow his companions, and shortly afterwards, having recovered from his faint, he mounted his horse, which had also regained its feet, and riding through some corn-fields, found himself near the banks of the Sambre at break of day. There he again encountered the Prussians, and all bravery being useless, he surrendered. In spite of his submission, he was pitilessly disarmed and stripped; the officers divided the contents of his purse, some forty Napoleons, among themselves; they took his arms, ring, and watch, and, owing to his height and his grey greatcoat, mistaking him for the Emperor, they brought him before the Prussian commander of the advanced guard. By him he was sent, with his hands tied, to another general of higher rank, who, in a sudden access of rage, and believing him to be Napoleon, determined to shoot him. There was fortunately no bandage at hand to cover his eyes, and a surgeon, who was ordered to apply a piece of sticking-plaster for that purpose, recognised in the forlorn prisoner, his former teacher at Berlin. The proceedings faire passer par les armes were thereupon suspended; and the poor Baron, his hands tied behind his back, his head covered with bloody rags, his feet bare, and scarcely covered by his greatcoat and pantaloons, was brought before General Bulow, and subsequently sent on to Blucher. The grim old marshal received him kindly, asked him to breakfast, and having presented him with twelve gold Fredericks, he sent him, in charge of one of his aides-de-camp, to Louvain. Bread thrown upon the waters was here, after many days, found. Blucher's son, grievously wounded and a prisoner, had been tended by Larrey after one of the battles of the campaign of Austria. At Louvain the aide-de-camp asked merely for a billet for a wounded Frenchman, whose name he could not tell; and Larrey, quartered upon a poor woman, who had scarcely wherewithal to sustain herself and her children, obtained with difficulty, in exchange for one of Blucher's gold pieces, some onion soup, and the favour of having a young surgeon to dress his wounds. Shortly after, he

continues, I saw a young medical officer come in and prepare to fulfil his mission, when suddenly he exclaimed, 'You are Baron Larrey,' and scarcely had I replied, before he rushed down the stairs and disappeared without uttering a word.' All was soon set right, the young surgeon shortly returned with a municipal officer, and the Baron was forthwith comfortably lodged in the house of a celebrated advocate, M. Yonk, from whom he received the utmost kindness."

Part Second.

REVIEWS.

THE USE OF BELLADONNA IN SCARLATINA.

1. Travaux Thérapeutiques sur la Belladone. Publicé par A. L. J. BAYLE (Tome Seconde de "Bibliothèque de Thérapeutique.") Paris, 1830.

2. A Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Homœopathy. By FRANCIS BLACK, M.D. London, 1842.

3. Homœopathy fairly Represented. By WILLIAM HENDERSON, M.D., Professor of General Pathology in the University of Edinburgh. 2d Edition. Edinburgh, 1853.

4. On the use of Belladonna in Scarlatina. Article in "British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review." No. 29. January 1855. By J. WARBURTON BEGBIE, M.D.

5. Prophylactic Power of Belladonna. Article in "British Journal of Homœopathy." No. 52. April 1855.

THE attention of the profession having lately been called to the subject of the employment of belladonna as a prophylactic in scarlatina, we take this opportunity of laying before our readers the views we ourselves entertain. In 1799 Hahnemann, then resident at Königslutter, discovered, as he supposed, the prophylactic virtue of belladonna in scarlatina, and two years thereafter, in a pamphlet published at Gotha, made known his discovery. We may here acquaint our readers with a circumstance, which, in our opinion, scarcely redounds to the credit of that "magnate," premising, however, that we should not now have referred to it, had we not lately seen attempts made to gloss over the impropriety of which Hahne mann was guilty in the interval which elapsed between his supposed discovery of the prophylactic action of belladonna, and his making

NEW SERIES.-NO. VI. JUNE 1855.

3 X

it known to the world. Concealing the name of the remedy, he offered his supposed discovery for sale, and it was only when he failed to find a purchaser that he made it public. For ourselves, we are of the number who do not desire to impute dishonourable motives to Hahnemann (any more than to Drs Black and Henderson, when they so strangely mislead their readers); but had Jenner so acted; had he, concealing the source of his vaccine virus, endeavoured to enlist the interest and sympathy of the profession and of the community at large in his discovery, by subscribing it, by giving or sending little portions of the virus, and soliciting reports upon its action after trial from the recipients-while notwithstanding such a procedure, the truth of his discovery would soon have made its magnificence known; can we doubt that the immortality of Jenner would not have been so cloudless.?

Before his supposed discovery was made known, while still the now vaunted belladonna was merely Dr Samuel Hahnemann's specific,3 thirty subscribers, whom Hahnemann had begged by letter to testify to the truth, and to publish the result (be it what it might), in the Reichs-Anzeiger, made no reply. "Two others, Dr Jani in Gera, and Dr Müller in Plauen," writes Hahnemann, "unsolicited by me, wrote something on the subject, but good heavens! in what a spirit."4 Into the controversy Hahnemann had with these two physicians, we need not enter, they decided against his specific, and forthwith, rightly or wrongly, we judge not, Hahnemann assailed them in very strong language, and with a personality and invective, which strangely contrast with the celebrated words in which his

"Then came his (Hahnemann's) public writings" (says Dr T. R. Leadam in the same number of the Homoeopathic Journal as contains the review), “his controversies, his efforts to establish this great truth in medicine, his persecutions, his discovery that belladonna was a prophylactic against scarlet fever, his indignation at the unfair suspicions that were cast upon him in his worldly endeavours to obtain a hearing for the new fact, and his consequent magnanimous publication of it for the good of mankind; perceiving that the world would not consent to remunerate him for the information, he indignantly yielded up his knowledge and turned aside the arrows which malignity and ignorance had forged." Had these remarks come from another quarter, no doubt they would have been assailed as unfair suspicions, but emanating from the "surgeonaccoucheur to the London Homœopathic Hospital," by whom they were de livered on the important occasion of an "Introductory Lecture;" the facts they contain must be beyond suspicion. Was not the theory of the prophylactic power of belladonna tarnished in its propounder?

2 Hahnemann, too, had the advantage of having seen the manner in which the English physician's discovery, not without some trials on his part, had been made known and promulgated. To Jenner's discovery his attention must have been drawn. Except to a certain extent in date, there exists no analogy between the labours of Jenner and Hahnemann, the former made a discovery, the latter a pseudo-discovery. The contrast between the conduct of Jenner and Hahneman may, however, be advantageously studied in Baron's Life of Jenner, and Hahnemann's View of Professional Liberality at the commencement of the 19th century. (Lesser Writings).

3 Hahnemann Präservativ.

4 Lesser Writings, edited by Dr Dudgeon, p. 421.

"view" closes, "Physicians of Germany, be brothers, be fair, be just."

Made public in 1801, eleven years elapsed before any decided testimony in favour of the prophylactic power of belladonna was published. In 1812, however, there appeared from the pen of Dr Schenck, in "Hufeland's Journal," the first of a pretty long series of favourable reports, which various physicians in Germany, some of them men of great learning and reputation, as Hufeland himself and Himly, from time to time contributed. Remarkable and interesting, however, as many of these papers are, we must affirm after reading them (a feat which Dr Black and Dr Henderson have yet to accomplish), that without a single exception they are sadly deficient in precision and in details. But while this character attaches more or less to all, there are some (and of these the authors names are not the least frequently quoted), which after perusal we cannot allow to have any weight in the question at issue; for not only are the facts. loosely stated, but as facts they are not of the slightest importance. As an illustration, we select the testimony of Masius whom Bayle and Black quote, and whose important statistics are included by Dr Henderson, when copying the latter. But not only do Bayle, Black, and Henderson approvingly quote the statistics of Dr Masius, many authors before and at least one since they wrote, have, from their unacquaintance with Masius' original statements, fallen into the same snare. Mr Peter 11. Bird's translation of the well-known work of M. Bouchut, "On the Diseases of Children," has just issued from the London press, and in it on the subject of belladonna in scarlatina, we find the following passage,-"This is one of the most curious. facts of modern therapeutics, the knowledge of which is due to the illustrious Hahnemann, whose observations leave little room for scepticism. They are, moreover, confirmed by a host of physicians, amongst whom we may mention Schenk, Masius, Hufeland, etc., etc., etc." We shall not now speak of the injustice done to the first two gentleman in spelling their names after a fashion they never authorised, but shall at once by a reference to the original paper of

1 Dr Black, in commencing his translation of Bayle, thinks it necessary to apologise to his readers for being able to introduce Germans alone (though after all, with his usual inaccuracy, he brings in M. Meglin of Colmar-a veritable Frenchinan, as an authority). How far more complimentary to the nation whom he panegyrizes, had he quoted from the original papers of these physicians, and not from a French translation.

2 The Homœopathic Reviewer insists upon spelling Dr Teuffel's name, Tuffel, asserting that he found it "sic in orig." Here we are left in doubt whether Bayle's, or Black's, or the original Teufel is referred to. Most assuredly Dr Teuffel knows best how to spell his own name. Besides, Teufel, as almost every well-educated person knows, is the German for Devil; and Dr Black, at least, ought to have been more true to his colours than to fail in dressing up his sooty confrère in the approved livery. How would he like to turn out in a French quotation as Dr Block? We trust that hereafter, the Devil (sic in orig.) will always have his due, and that Dr Black may never have reason to complain of being painted less black than he is called. Many are the indi

Masius, enable our readers to judge to what extent he has any right to be considered as one of a host of physicians, whose observations leave little room for scepticism. During an epidemic, which continued two years at Schwerin, Dr Masius, who believed himself to be constitutionally prone to the infection of scarlatina, was occupied in treating cases of a malignant type, and taking half a grain of the belladonna in four doses every day on which he visited scarlet fever patients; the consequence, we express in his own words, " und ich blieb frei." Four of his children also, who had not had the disease, and had no restriction placed on their movements, but received the belladonna, were preserved. At another time, when the disease prevailed at Rostock, Dr Masius adopting the same plan, preserved himself and his children. Upon the strength of this experience, Dr Masius declares for Dr Hahnemann's preservative, and not content with a simple expression of his own reliance in belladonna, he denounces all unbelievers, and pointing at them, he closes his remarks in the following words,-"Ich ehre den vernünftigen scepticismus aber ich hasse den blinden Unglauben des Zeitalters." If we do not greatly mistake, our readers will embrace the "reasonable scepticism" so politely offered, and will reject such paltry evidence, even at the risk of "blind incredulity" being laid to their charge. Reference to the original paper of Dr Masius, in Hufeland's Journal for 1813, would have spared M. Bouchut (whom we acquit from any desire to mislead), from being accessory to the propagation of such miserable twaddle, and of permitting it to pass current as scientific investigation. Bayle is less blameworthy, in so far as he furnishes his readers with very nearly Masius' exact observations, and in another part of his volume presents them as is his wont, with a resumé of his own. It is this resumé (which not unfrequently does not correspond with the observations as given in detail, and which cannot therefore be considered as always representing in a faithful manner the statements of the original observers),' with which Dr Black, rejecting the

nities offered to the German physicians in this particular by Drs Black and Henderson, and we only allude to them because they might and ought to have been avoided.

1 As an example, though by no means the most marked, of the discrepancies which exist between the "recueil" and the "resumé" in Bayle's work, we shall take leave to present the two following passages to the reader. 1st, From the translation in extenso:-" Chez la plupart des individus soumis au traitement prophylactique, il se manifesta, au bout de quelques jours, une éruption générale, semblable à celle de la rougeole, et tous ceux chez lesquels une telle éruption s'était manifestée, demeurèrent exempts de l'effet de la contagion.” 2d, From the resumé of Bayle: "Chez plusieurs des préservés, il y eut une éruption générale apyrétique, un peu analogue a la scarlatine, et qui n'était que l'effet de la belladone, observé par Hahnemann." Dr Black translates the latter. And as representing accurately the views of the original observer, in this instance Dr Dusterberg, the "Homœopathic Reviewer," has the assurance to say, "that in every instance" the views of the German physicians "are at least fairly enough rendered, and in all but one or two, with the most perfect accuracy. By whom our readers will say, Why, by "Dr Black and Dr

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »