physicians (to say nothing of Homoeopathic admirals)
would have called cholera, and not one of them died,
though treated in the common way, and it is my firm
belief that, if such a result had followed the administration
of the omnipotent globules, it would have been in
the mouth of every adept in Europe, from Quin of London
to Spohr of Gandersheim. No longer ago than yesterday,
in one of the most widely circulated papers of this
city, there was published an assertion that the mortality
in several Homoeopathic Hospitals was not quite five
in a hundred, whereas, in what are called by the writer
Allopathic Hospitals, it is said to be eleven in a
hundred. An honest man should be ashamed of such
an argumentum ad ignorantiam. The mortality of
a hospital depends not merely on the treatment of the
patients, but on the class of diseases it is in the
habit of receiving, on the place where it is, on the
season, and many other circumstances. For instance,
there are many hospitals in the great cities of Europe
that receive few diseases of a nature to endanger
life, and, on the other hand, there are others where
dangerous diseases are accumulated out of the common
proportion. Thus, in the wards of Louis, at the
Hospital of La Pitie, a vast number of patients in
the last stages of consumption were constantly entering,
to swell the mortality of that hospital. It was
because he was known to pay particular attention to
the diseases of the chest that patients laboring under
those fatal affections to an incurable extent were
so constantly coming in upon him. It is always
a miserable appeal to the thoughtlessness of the vulgar,
to allege the naked fact of the less comparative mortality
in the practice of one hospital or of one physician
than another, as an evidence of the superiority of
their treatment. Other things being equal, it
must always be expected that those institutions and
individuals enjoying to the highest degree the confidence
of the community will lose the largest proportion
of their patients; for the simple reason that they
will naturally be looked to by those suffering from
the gravest class of diseases; that many, who know
that they are affected with mortal disease, will choose
to die under their care or shelter, while the subjects
of trifling maladies, and merely troublesome symptoms,
amuse themselves to any extent among the fancy practitioners.
When, therefore, Dr. Mublenbein, as stated in the
“Homoeopathic Examiner,” and quoted in
yesterday’s “Daily Advertiser,” asserts
that the mortality among his patients is only one
per cent. since he has practised Homoeopathy, whereas
it was six per cent. when he employed the common mode
of practice, I am convinced by this, his own statement,
that the citizens of Brunswick, whenever they are
seriously sick, take good care not to send for Dr.
Muhlenbein!