176 homilies arranged in order for all the Sundays and festivals of the ecclesiastical year; and probably was completed before the year 780. Though written in Latin, its discourses were doubtless intended to be delivered in the vulgar tongue; the clergy, however, were often too indolent or too ignorant for this, although by more than one provincial council they were enjoined to exert themselves so that they might be able to do so.[1] Hence an important form of literary activity came to be the translation of the homilies approved by the church into the vernacular. Thus we find Alfred the Great translating the homilies of Bede; and in a similar manner arose Ælfric’s Anglo-Saxon Homilies and the German Homiliarium of Ottfried of Weissenburg. Such Homiliaria as were in use in England down to the end of the 15th century were at the time of the Reformation eagerly sought for and destroyed, so that they are now extremely rare, and the few copies which have been preserved are generally in a mutilated or imperfect form.[2]
The Books of Homilies referred to in the 35th article of the Church of England originated at a convocation in 1542, at which it was agreed “to make certain homilies for stay of such errors as were then by ignorant preachers sparkled among the people.” Certain homilies, accordingly, composed by dignitaries of the lower house, were in the following year produced by the prolocutor; and after some delay a volume was published in 1547 entitled Certain sermons or homilies appointed by the King’s Majesty to be declared and read by all parsons, vicars, or curates every Sunday in their churches where they have cure. In 1563 a second Book of Homilies was submitted along with the 39 Articles to convocation; it was issued the same year under the title The second Tome of Homilies of such matters as were promised and instituted in the former part of Homilies, set out by the authority of the Queen’s Majesty, and to be read in every Parish Church agreeably. Of the twelve homilies contained in the first book, four (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) are probably to be attributed to Cranmer, and one (the 12th) possibly to Latimer; one (the 6th) is by Bonner; another (the 5th) is by John Harpsfield, archdeacon of London, and another (the 11th) by Thomas Becon, one of Cranmer’s chaplains. The authorship of the others is unknown. The second book consists of twenty-one homilies, of which the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th, 9th, 16th and 17th have been assigned to Jewel, the 4th to Grindal, the 5th and 6th to Pilkington and the 18th to Parker. See the critical edition by Griffiths, Oxford, 1869. The homilies are not now read publicly, though they are sometimes appealed to in controversies affecting the doctrines of the Anglican Church.
HOMOEOPATHY (from the Greek ὅμοιος, like, and πάθος,
feeling). The distinctive system of therapeutics which bears
the name of homoeopathy is based upon the law similia similibus
curentur,[3] the originator of which was S. C. F. Hahnemann, a
native of Meissen in Germany, who discovered his new principle
while he was experimenting with cinchona bark in 1790, and
announced it in 1796.[4] The essential tenets of homoeopathy—with
which is contrasted the “allopathy” (ἄλλος, other) of
the “orthodox” therapeutics—are that the cure of disease
is effected by drugs that are capable of producing in a healthy
individual symptoms similar to those of the disease to be treated,
and that to ascertain the curative virtues of any drug it must
be “proved” upon healthy persons—that is, taken by individuals
of both sexes in a state of health in gradually increasing doses.
The manifestations of drug action thus produced are carefully
recorded, and this record of “drug-diseases,” after being verified
by repetition on many “provers,” constitutes the distinguishing
feature of the homoeopathic materia medica, which, while it
embraces the sources, preparation and uses of drugs as known
to the orthodox pharmacopoeia, contains, in addition, the
various “provings” obtained in the manner above described.
Besides the promulgation of the doctrine of similars, Hahnemann also enunciated a theory to account for the origin of all chronic diseases, which he asserted were derived either directly or remotely from psora (the itch), syphilis (venereal disease) or sycosis (fig-wart disease). This doctrine, although at first adopted by some of the enthusiastic followers of Hahnemann, was almost immediately discarded by very many who had a firm belief in his law of cure. In the light of advancing science such theories are entirely untenable, and it was unfortunate for the system of medicine which he founded that Hahnemann should have promulgated such an hypothesis. It served as a target for the shafts of ridicule showered upon the system by those who were its opponents, and even at the present time there still exists in the minds of many misinformed persons the conviction that homoeopathy is a system of medicine that bases the origin of all chronic disease on the itch or on syphilis or fig-warts.
Another peculiar feature of homoeopathy is its posology or theory of dose. It may be asserted that homoeopathic posology has nothing more to do with the original law of cure than the psora (itch) theory has, and that it was one of the later creations of Hahnemann’s mind. Most homoeopathists believe more or less in the action of minute doses of medicine, but it must not be considered as an integral part of the system. The dose is the corollary, not the principle. Yet in the minds of many, infinitesimal doses of medicine stand for homoeopathy itself, the real law of cure being completely put into the background. The question of dose has also divided the members of the homoeopathic school into bitter factions, and is therefore a matter for careful consideration. Many employ low potencies,[5] i.e. mother
- ↑ Neander, Church History, v. 174 (Eng. trans. of 1851).
- ↑ An ancient English metrical homiliarium is preserved in the library of the university of Cambridge. Earlier versions of it have existed, and a portion of perhaps the earliest copy, dating from about the middle of the 13th century, was published in 1862 by Mr J. Small, librarian to the university of Edinburgh.
- ↑ An interesting controversy has been carried on between the members of the homoeopathic school as to the proper construction of the Latin motto which constitutes its acknowledged basis. For many years the verb at the conclusion of the sentence was used in the indicative mood, curantur, thus making the sentence a positive one. After extended research it has been discovered that Hahnemann himself never employed the word curantur as descriptive of his law of cure, but always wrote curentur, which greatly modifies the meaning of the phrase. If the subjunctive mood be used, the motto reads, “Let similars be treated by similars,” or “similars should be treated by similars.” The reading similia similibus curentur was officially adopted as the correct reading of the sentence by the American Institute of Homoeopathy at its session held in Atlantic City, N.J., on the 20th of June 1899; and the words are so inscribed on the monument erected to the memory of Hahnemann and unveiled in Washington, D.C., on the 23rd of June 1900, and also are those carved upon the tomb of Hahnemann in Père-la-Chaise, Paris.
- ↑
Some points of Hahnemann’s system were borrowed from
previous writers—as he himself, though imperfectly, admits. Not
to mention others, he was anticipated by Hippocrates, and especially
by Paracelsus (1495–1541). The identical words similia similibus
curantur occur in the Geneva edition (1658) of the works of Paracelsus,
as a marginal heading of one of the paragraphs; and in the “Fragmenta
Medica,” Op. Omnia, i. 168, 169, occurs the following
passage:
Simile similis cura; non contrarium.
“Quisquis enim cum laude agere Medicum volet, is has nugas longe valere jubeat. Nec enim ullus unquam morbus calidus per frigida sanatus fuit, nec frigidus per calida. Simile autem suum simile frequenter curavit, scilicet Mercurius sulphur, et sulphur Mercurium; et sal ilia, velut et illa sal. Interdum quidem cum proprietate junctum frigidum sanavit calidum; sed id non factum est ratione frigidi, verum ratione naturae alterius, quam a primo illo omnino diversam facimus.”
It is very remarkable that in Hahnemann’s enumeration of authors who anticipated him in regard to the doctrine of Similia, he makes no mention of the views of Paracelsus, though the very words seem to be taken from the works of that physician. The other point in Hahnemann’s doctrine—that medicines should be tried first on healthy persons—he admits to have been enunciated by Haller. Roughly it has been acted on by physicians in all ages, but certainly more systematically since Hahnemann’s time. In the most characteristic feature of Hahnemann’s practice—“the potentizing,” “dynamizing,” of medicinal substances—he appears to have been original.
- ↑ Two methods of preparing medicines are recognized, one on the decimal, the other on the centesimal scale. The pure tinctures are denominated “mother tinctures,” and represented by the Greek φ. To make a first decimal dilution or first decimal trituration, 10 drops of the mother tincture, or 10 grains of a crude substance, are mixed with 90 drops of alcohol, or 90 grains of saccharum lactis (sugar of milk) respectively. The liquid is thoroughly shaken, or the powder carefully triturated, and the bottles containing them marked 1 X, meaning first decimal dilution or trituration. To make the 2 X potency, 10 drops or 10 grains of this first dilution or trituration are mixed with 90 drops of pure alcohol, or 90 grains of milk sugar, and are succussed or triturated as above described, and marked 2 X dilution or trituration. This subdivision of particles may be continued to an indefinite degree. On the Hahnemannian or centesimal scale the medicines are prepared in the same manner, the difference being that 1 drop or grain is mixed with 99 drops or grains, to make the first centesimal, which is marked 1 c or 1 simply, and so on for the second and higher dilutions.
