Kindred Delusions

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Homϗpathy, and its kindred delusions

The young Oliver Wendell Holmes delivered this critical address on homeopathy to the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge on February 16, 1842, and then published it with a companion lecture, "Medical delusions of the past," later that spring. Although Holmes would deal with homeopathy "not by ridicule, but by argument; perhaps with great freedom, but with good temper and in peaceable language; with very little hope of reclaiming converts, with no desire of making enemies, but with a firm belief that its pretensions and assertions cannot stand before a single hour of calm investigation," the lecture started a war of words in newspapers and pamphlets.

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An answer to the homœopathic delusions, of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes

This is one of the pamphlets printed in reaction to the Holmes lecture on homeopathy. In responding to Holmes' criticism of the use of infinitesimal doses, Charles Neidhard states, "We, with many Homœopathic physicians, have never believed in the necessity of carrying the dilutions to that extent, which Hahnemann at once time recommended…. It is true that Hahnemann, elated by the magnitude of his discoveries, imagined at one time, that the highest dilutions were exclusively to be relied upon in all cases. He shared in this error the fate of all great discoverers, and he was always the first to rectify a statement, when it no longer accorded with his experience. Thus the new method, for ever progressing, has also in this respect undergone such changes, as a more mature experience warranted."

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Homœopathy : with particular reference to a lecture by O. W. Holmes, M.D.

This pamphlet by A. Howard Okie is another reaction to Holmes’ lecture. Other influential early anti-homeopathic tracts—Sir John Forbes' pamphlet, "Homeopathy, allopathy, and 'young physic,'" (New York, 1846) and Worthington Hooker's Homeopathy : an examination of its doctrines and evidence (New York, 1851)—soon followed, perpetuating the war of words.

Controversy
Kindred Delusions