Extract from the Journal of Proceedings of the Meeting of the Homeopathic Physicians.

From Boenninghausen The Lesser Writings

August 10^th, 1849:

The prophylaxis of Cholera; August 1849.

This is an address for the non-medical public, as the remedy was readily available, the symptoms clear, the prophylactic remedy known and the application of it simple.

They realized that the public needed help fast and above all, the hope and comfort that hope brings, to keep fear and stress from escalating the disease. 

……as well as in this epidemic of Cholera now raging, it has been shown indubitably that nothing favors the spread of this disease more than the fear of it. Even the seeming malignancy of this epidemic in the first period of its appearance may almost be solely explained by the anxiety and terror caused by its appearance.

The first duty, therefore, must be, also, as this may be effected by sanitary and police regulations, to remove everything which might cause fear and anxiety. Among such measures we enumerate quarantines, warning-tablets, and unusual forms of funerals, as also all measures which would present this disease in the eyes of the public as particularly dangerous and deadly.

What then should we say of the fact that the newspapers of a city, which considers itself as the seat of intelligence and science, display descriptions of the cruel malignancy of the present epidemic of cholera which defies all the efforts of the healing art; that physicians instead of opposing this by word and deed, are silent……..and by such means increase and spread the fear caused by the disease? The sad results of such cruel errors will, we fear, soon show themselves.

…….we homeopaths are convinced that we possess prophylactics which have the power of preventing the outbreak of cholera. Of course, these are and can only be such remedies as are able to cure the disease after it has broken out, which indeed is the first and most necessary requisite of all prophylactics, and without which they would not deserve the least consideration*.  (*……from extensive averages, the allopaths have on the average lost 49 of 100 patients, while homeopaths have only lost 5-7 out of a 100, the latter may well claim to possess remedies against this disease.)

Although the circumstance that thousands of men have through the use of these homeopathic prophylactics escaped cholera, as has been actually proved, does not incontestably prove that these afford an absolute protection, since it might have been that these very persons might have been the same ones who would in any case not have been touched by the disease, nevertheless these facts speak for a least very much for the probability of such salutary action, and it will be that much easier for homeopaths to preserve the necessary calm and fortitude. From this we would draw the fact that there are preponderant reasons for recommending these prophylactics to all those at least who find in them a comfort which they would not find in any other way.

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