“The fundamental principles of this co-called doctrine are just as untenable as they ever were, and, in general, medical science must refuse to accept or recognize systems of any kind, whether homoeopathic or otherwise.
“This spoke Zarathustra” through of a German professor, Goldscheider, in the discussion before the Verein fur Innere Medizinische Wochenschrift on the subject “What Attitude Shall We Take Toward homoeopathy?”.
This characteristic Nietschean deliverance was duly quoted, with warmly approving comments, by the journal of the American Medical Association, August 15, 1925.
Here we have the traditional and unchanging attitude and spirit of allopathic “official medicine toward homoeopathy in particular and now toward medical systems in general.
Time was,not so long ago, when every allopathic treatise of any pretensions toward completeness was called a “System.” Then they gave us “Systems of Medicine,” Systems of Surgery,” “Systems of Gynecology,” etc., without blushing. But times have changed. Their medical systems, having been proved by experience to be fundamentally wrong, have gone out of fashion, like long hair for women. They now wear their medical hair bobbed.
As an exposure of total ignorance of the true relation of systems to science Professor Goldscheiders dictum is complete. As an expression of arrogance, intolerance and bigotry it is comprehensive. It affords sufficient vindication for those who hold that “Modern scientific medicine” is the most unscientific body in the scientific world of today.
The quotation, taken with its context the castigation administered to Professor Bier for his temerity in again saying a good word for homoeopathy (it is not his first offensive) and in connection with its endorsement by the official organ of the A.M.A., justifies the attitude of those, in and out of medicine, who regard organized “official” medicine, in its medico-political activities, as one of the most dangerous foes of liberty in the world today.
Speaking of Systems-Organized Medicine, represented preeminently by the American Medical Association, is one of the greatest and most powerful Systems in existence. Secretly aiming at complete control of the people, trying constantly to shackle independent medical and biological thought, suppress truth and force its false doctrines, pernicious ideas and physically dangerous practices upon the people, the American Medical Association, in its political aspect, is the most sinister, most powerful, most subtle and most successful system in the United States.
Though national, state and municipal organizations which it controls from within by individuals and committees subject to its dictation; through secret contracts which gave it medical censorship and control of the syndicating press agencies of the country, and through representation in health departments, it exerts its power for good and evil in practically every department of human activity. for while it has accomplished much good , it has its evil side. It is intrenched in law and backed by the entire police power of the State.
It maintains legal departments and lobbies for influencing legislation, some good and some bad., Through legal enactments, states and ordinances it controls public institutions, dominates education and incidentally tyrannizes over the community in many ways. Legislatures and courts, the army and navy, educational and charity organizations, the press, railway and steamship transportation companies and commercial organizations, as well as the general public, all bow to its will and carry out its mandates.
It publishes a weekly journal which has, probably, the largest circulation of any medical journal in the world. It conducts a nation-wide syndicated press propaganda for popularizing its medical doctrines, practices and processes. It censors or suppresses every article by outsiders setting forth criticism, opposing thought, or the results of independent investigation and experience in the entire medical field.
It is practically impossible for any writer outside the organization to get his articles published in the leading papers and magazines of the country if they conflict in any way with orthodox medicine. The censor in Chicago and his representatives in the principle cities of the country see to it that his work does not appear. Few editor dare to admit articles without their approval.
Back of the association, or allied with it, are vast, frequently rapacious, commercial interests with unnecessary drugs, laboratory products, serums, vaccines, toxins, antitoxins, hypodermic syringes and needles, together with necessary and useful medical and surgical supplies of all kinds. More or less blindly carrying out its plans and enforcing its decrees is an an army of officials, agents, employees, managers, inspectors and detail men, all dependent for their livelihood upon the maintenance of this vast, self-seeking, self-perpetuating medico-political-commercial industrial system, which pretends not to be system.
The real directors and strategists of the association do their work under cover. Their names seldom appear in print. The public and the profession at large know little or nothing about them. Some of them are not even officially connected with the organizations in and through which their nefarious work is done. Frequently the officers and members of such organizations do not know that they are being used or controlled for medico- political purpose. They are completely hoodwinked as to the identity of their real masters.
Of the 90,000 members claimed by the American Medical Association, of whom a great majority are earnest, sincere, hard- working but misguided physicians, very few know the identity or the real purposes of the little clique which controls it, nor how they do their work. Those who know in part and see the trend of the political activities of the association, always reaching out for more power, are restless and rebellious, but powerless, They sense the presence of traitors to the high ideals of medicine in their camp but cannot put their finger on them.
They see the drift of vast numbers of the people away from the medical profession into the camp of the non medical cults and are puzzled to account for it. Probably thirty million people in the United States have thus freed themselves from medical bondage and “lived happily ever after ward.” They see medicine becoming more and more “scientific” and political and less and less humane.
They see an army of doctors whose principal weapon is the hypodermic needle, a weapon far more vicious than the notorious “needle-gum” of the Civil War. They see vast sums of money squandered in “research” that leads nowhere but into worse and worse therapeutic error and confusion, and in building great “medical centers” from which radiate many false therapeutic doctrines, delusive promises and pernicious practices.
They see great leaders in medicine and surgery like Bier in Germany and Bulkley in New York, brave men who dare to follow truth wherever it leads, opposed, censured, traduced, browbeaten and forced out of their official positions in institutions they have created, in the effort to crush them, ostensibly because they are adherents or defenders of a “system” or go counter to the will of “The Organization.” And this they see without realizing that they, themselves, as well as the concealed oppresses, are all members, victims or adherents of a system vastly greater and infinitely more dangerous than those which are being attacked.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.