You "do not believe that Arnica is any good for injuries and, moreover, it is a poisonous drug, causing very dangerous, or, at least, very severe, erysipelas". I have nothing to do with your beliefs: clinical facts are what I am concerned with. I cured an old case of aphonia with Arnica, and an account of that I have sent you as my thirteenth reason for being an homoeopath. Whether you believe in the anti-traumatic virtues of Arnica or not is your affair : I fearlessly affirm that your scepsis would not have cured it, anyhow.
Further, I did not deny that Arnica causes very severe and even dangerous erysipelas. Indeed, I know it well, and have seen it, and out of your own mouth will I take my fourteenth reason for being a homoeopath.
OLD CASE OF ERYSIPELAS CURED BY ARNICA
Some years since an eminent member of the Society of Friends wrote to me, stating that he had for a number of years been suffering from erysipelas of the face at odd intervals. I ordered him Arnica in a rather high dilution and in infrequent dose, and thereupon his erysipelas faded and came no more. Long afterwards he wrote me a very grateful letter, giving me much undue praise for having wit enough to see that the almighty has His laws in therapeutics for the guidance of His poor, sick children.
I have it from you that Arnica causes erysipelas; I will not doubt your statement; you may now take it from me that Arnica cures erysipelas, and this I offer you as my fourteenth reason for being a homoeopath. You know the bad character of Arnica in that it is apt to cause erysipelas; I tell you of its good fame, viz. that it possesses the power of curing erysipelas, and the intellectual link that completes the little chain is the law of likes that God put into the mind of one Samuel to explain to the world.