THE NEW ZEALAND MEDICAL ASSOCIATION AND HOMŒOPATHY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9062, 24 May 1888, Page 6

THE NEW ZEALAND MEDICAL ASSOCIATION AND HOMŒOPATHY.

The following letter from Dr. Murray Moore was read at the first meeting of the New Zealand Medical Association yesterday : —

To the President and Members of the Mew Zealand Medical Association. Gentlemen, —I understand that a Conference of all your branch societies in New Zealand is shortly to be held in this city, at which many subjects deeply interesting to the whole medical profession of this colony will be discussed. On inquiry I find that I am debarred from taking part in this Conference by reason of my method of practice (viz., homoeopathic) disqualifying me from membership of your Auckland branch, according to No. 10 of its rules. Rule 10 states that No homoeopath, nor any person whose qualifications are not recognised by the British Medical Council, shall be eligible for membership." Now, although I am aware that this rule has been framed in accordance with the anti-homoeopa-thic resolution passed by the British Medical Association so far back as 1851, and that the rules of your branch associations are modelled after those of the provincial branches of the British Medical Association, yet I protested strongly against the introduction of this clause in 1883 at the formation of the Auckland branch, and now again renew my protest. In order that my colleagues may have my views fairly under consideration, I am having this letter printed, and sent to those whose addresses are accessible. For the second time, then, I solemnly protest against the importation into the free air of this colony such a piece of old world prejudice and narrowness as the exclusion from your society, by rule 10, of certain properlyqualified practitioners, merely on the ground of their belief in a certain law or rule of therapeutics, the existence of which is denied by the majority, who have never investigated it. To be honest and explicit, the title of your Auckland branch should be " The Auckland Allopathic (or Non-Hemoeopathie) Medical. Association." Far removed, as we are in Auckland, from medical libraries, museums, colleges, and special hospitals ana societies, one would have thought that a company of medical men forming a colonial society—formed, as the memorandum of association of the British Medical Association expressly states, for " The promotion of medical and allied sciences and the maintenance of the honour and interests of the medical profession"would not have excluded from their fellowship that small number of honest men who openly acknowledge the truth of the Law of Similars first demonstrated by Samuel Hahnemann. Yv hat would the scientific men of the world think if the British Association for the Advancement of Science had debarred from its membership, thirty or forty years since, all believers in Darwin's theory of evolution ? It would have become the derision of all scientists. " It is precisely because every new theory and fact brought before it has been always freely discussed, and, as a rule investigated. that this grand and liberal association. become the leader of scientific work, and the goal of aspirants after fame throughout the world. The broad basis of membership should be (1) a respectable character, and ('2) tho possession of a diploma or degree recognised by the British Medical Council. The ballot will secure you against the admission of individuals unacceptable to the majority of members. Those to whom I am personally known will admit that I possess these two qualifications : but, in order to correct certain misrepresentations current, 1 must state: Ist, that I have never met in consultation, here or elsewhere, an unqualified man; 2nd, that my fees are adjusted to your tariff; 3rd, that I am not in partnership with any chemist. While I am glad to acknowledge the individual friendship and professional assistance of some of your ablest men, I am now seeking to remove this barrier—not for myself alone, but for all qualified practitioners of my therapeutic belief. As the various objections to the admission of homoeopaths to the medical societies and hospitals have been completely answered (by Lord Grimthorpe, Dr. Dudgeon, Dr. Dyce Brown, and others) in the recent controversy in the Times, and by Mr. Kenneth Millican in his article in the Nineteenth Centurv magazine for February, 1888, entitled, "The Present Position of the Medical Schism," it would only be waste of time and space to reiterate and refute them. (All medical men should read the latter article.) But I must be permitted to say that while I neither assume (on my card or plate) the title of " Homoeopath," I cannot for a moment repudiate the word which, to the public, conveniently and rightly designates my mode of practice. It is just as correct as to describe Mr. H. H. as an " oculist," and Dr. W. as an " aurist." All these terms describe specialties, and there is nothing of which one need be ashamed in the appellation " Homceopathist" or " Homoeopath. ' But are not many of you homoeopaths without knowing it? Do you not give a small fraction of a grain for a dose, e.g., one-hundredth of a grain of corrosive sublimate in dysentery, a disease to which this drug is peculiarly homoeopathic (see records of poisoning, pas-tim) ? Is not a drop of Ipecacuanha wine given to cure vomiting a homoeopathic remedy? &c. I find your favourite Manuals of fherapeutics, written by Drs. Ringer, Bartholow, Lauder, Brunton, and C. Phillips (who himself practised Homoeopathy in Manchester for 20 years) absolutely teeming with unacknowledged appropriations from Homoeopathic sources—(Dr. Potter's Index, &c.) 1 find the experience of Drs. Baves and Hughes, both prominent Homoeopaths, quoted with respcct by Dr. Ringer. I finol that homoeopaths are admitted bv the Birmingham Medical Institute, the Manchester Medico-Ethical Society, and the Therapeutical Society of London ; and I still remain a member of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. Ido not at present believe in the universal application of the law of similars; but, after a clinical experience of twenty-one years, I can truly say that this same much-abused law or rule, Similia similibun curentur, covers a very large majority of all cases of disease amenable to any sort of drug-treatment whatever. To call the practice of my system "irregular" is a futile objection, so long as you cannot agree upon a unanimous definition of what " regular " practice consists. So much is homoeopathy permeating the so-called " regular " practice that even our tasteless preparations of medicine are being imitated all over the world. Exclusive of these two peculiarities of practice, I am in full accord with the conventional ethics and usages of the profession. Gentlemen, Our lot is cast in a young and vigorous country, where truth should spread and grow, untrammelled by tyranny, whether medical, religious, or political, and where our noble profession should discountenance Pharisaism in its societies, whilst presenting a determined and united opposition to real oiuackery. I call upon you to signalise this Conference— the first meeting of the New Zealand Medical Association in Auckland—by sweeping away this obnoxious clause, which is rendered doubly offensive by being worded so as to class us with the whole tribe of unlicensed practitioners. —I have, &c., John Murray Moore, M.D.; M.B. and C.M. with honours, L.M. University of Edinburgh; M.R.C.S., England; M.D., New Zealand ; Member of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh; Fellow of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh ; Member of the General Council of Edinburgh University, &c. Symonds-street, Auckland, May 21, 1888.