HOMŒPATHY AND MEDICAL PROGRESS DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY.
President's Address, read at the meeting of the Syracuse Medical Association, January 14, 1890.BY NATHAN JACOBSON, M.D., PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL SURGERY AND LARYNGOLOGY, COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY.I purpose, this evening, directing your attention to homœopathy, and particularly to its principles as enunciated by Hahnemann and the manner in which they have been influenced by medical progress, and briefly to compare its achievements with those of scientific medicine during the present century. To appreciate fully the condition that made homœopathy a possibility, it is necessary that we consider the tenor of medical thought and teaching during the eighteenth century.The eighteenth century was the age of systems and theories. There existed an abundance of material obtained from observation and the natural sciences, but it remained undigested. One hundred years before, Sydenham had written: "The improvement of physic, in my opinion,