In May last there appeared in the Recorder an article entitled “A Warning,” in which the steal perpetrated by Prof. George W. Carey, D.C.L., of Spokane, Washington; J.B. Chapman, M.D., etc., and J.G. Lawrence, etc., on the “Twelve Tissue Remedies,” Boericke & Dewey’s edition, was shown up, and where in the profession was warned of another projected, steal in these words:
“An obscure publisher in one of our small western cities announces that a new work is soon to appear on the Tissue Remedies by Prof. George W. Carey, D.C.L., of Spokane, Washington.” This work, coming as it does on the heels of the third edition of Boericke & Dewey’s book, is equivalent to notifying that small part of the medical world reached by the publication in which the statement is found that again a copy of the improved and up to date Boericke & Dewey edition is to be “jotted down to supply a heavy demand for just such a book.”
Carey’s book is out it is convenient to call it Carey’s, and the prophesy contained in the above “Warning” has been more than fulfilled. Let us call attention to a few facts, and if our readers than insist that we call it Carey’s book we shall be glad to do so. It is a work of some 440 odd pages. The arrangement is a perfect copy of the Boericke & Dewey book. The typographical work, being also copied, is fair, the binding is cheap, and the table of contents is almost a verbatim copy of the Boericke & Dewey table of contents.
One would naturally expect to find in the first chapter, in the here, the writer informs us in his preface, is his great claim to originality. The first chapter contains fifty pages. Seven of these are copied bodily from Mrs. Walker’s English edition. The thirty three pages of the first chapter of Boericke & Dewey’s edition are either copied verbatim or changed to suit the ends of the work, and where these changes occur facts are grossly misstated. For instance: where credit was given to the Medical Investigator for the first English translation in the Boericke & Dewey edition, credit was given to a journal in which the publisher of this steal in interested. This disposes of about forty out of the fifty pages of the first chapter. The remaining ten pages are largely a rehash of material found in different sources. As an example of the inaccuracy of the author of this work when he departs from his copy, the following may be quoted: “Dr. Boericke, late Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in Hahnemann College of San Francisco, and house surgeon at Ward’s Island Hospital, gives the analysis of Aconite and China, each as containing four percent. Of Ferrum phos.”
The facts are these: Dr. Boericke is present Professor of Materia Medica in the Hahnemann Hospital College of San Francisco, not late Professor. He is not now nor never was house surgeon at Ward’s Island Hospital, nor did he ever give the analysis of Aconite or China as containing 4 per cent. Of Ferrum phos.
The table given on page 29 of Boericke & Dewey’s work and copied by our kleptomaniac friend is apparently too deep for him; had he examined it carefully he would perhaps have seen the need of the conjunction and to have made it give 4 per cent. Of Ferrum phos. In Aconite or China. This table and other tables are copied with like inaccuracy. Other changes of Part I are made up largely of disclaiming anything Homeopathic in the Biochemic system, and the addition of some really beautiful and unique language. That this feature of the work may not be lost to those who possess the Boericke & Dewey edition, a few are here given:
“In Biochemistry there is a haven of rest to the troubled mind.”
“The unfurled flag of Biochemistry.”
“Carrying the banner of Biochemistry up the hill of difficulty.”
“The sun of Biochemistry sheds its beams over the world. Before its refulgent rays poisons flee away (sic).”
“Biochemistry bathes its lofty brow in the glad light of divine wisdom.”
“Children learn its glorious matters. The aged and infirm rejoice and hope once again comes to dwell in their habitations.”
“The great pyramid of scientific medicine of this advanced era,” which like “a universal shaft of light will lie across this land.”
More of this can be supplied at short notice.
The author also says, “I reverently uncover my head in the Presence of the stupendous realities about to be unveiled to the seekers after truth.” Probably the Boericke & Dewey edition was never described before as a “stupendous realities!”
He speaks of Schiissler, whose full name he does not appear to know for he calls him Dr. Med. Schiissler, as having cleared away the “rubbish of ages,” among which “rubbish” he in stances the Homeopathic law of cure “Similia similibus curantur,” which he ridicules also in the preface to the work.
Part 2nd consists of seventy-three pages. This is practically a copy of the corresponding part of Boericke & Dewey’s work, less all references to Homoeopathic remedies. Here again the author has overstepped himself. In his eagerness to eliminate all things Homoeopathic, he has unwittingly incorporated symptoms obtained from provings of these remedies; old Hahnemannian symptoms found in the provings of Silicea and Natrum mur., Symptoms from Farington’s proving of Natrum phos., from Allen’s provings of Kali phos. And Magnesia phos. Made mostly by the way, with the higher potencies are faithfully copied, yet everywhere Homoeopathy is disclaimed. There has been some attempt by the copyist in this part to hide his tracks by change of language, but it contains absolutely nothing new, and with what of the homoeopathy eliminated its is valueless.
It is, however, in part 3rd that the copyist author excels; to be sure here there is no chance for linguistic or chirographic flight of fancy, and here we find more verbatim copying than in any other part of the book. In fact with the exception of a few new clinical cases it is practically a counterpart of the Boericke & Dewey book. Cases furnished the authors of that book in person by physicians of eminence all over the country are copied, by the wholesale without any mention or credit. ‘In fact the only mention made by the B. & D. Book is on page 13, and here the author hastens to say that it was “followed by a small book on the biochemic system, by Drs. Carley and Chapman, of North Yakima, Washington. Strangely enough he omits to say that of 261 pages of this “small book,” 243 were a verbatim et literatim copy of the first edition of Boericke & Dewey.
The remaining parts of the B. & D. Book, the Repertory and Index, are faithfully reproduced in this new work with little if any change.
The new work even though faithfully advertised in Homoeopathic journals will probably die an atral death, as did the “Small book” above referred to. Homoeopathic physicians will scarcely care to pay for an inferior copy of a work already several years on the market, especially when shorn of its best features; the Homoeopathicily of these “Twelve Tissue Remedies.”
The publisher of this steal once told the writer and his truth fullness is a household word wherever he is known (!) that he gave a copy of the “twelve tissue Remedies” (B. & D.) to his professional customers for the increased sale of these remedies allowed him to do so with profit. Here, in a nutshell, is the “long felt want” supplied by this dishonorable, unprofessional, bold-faced steal. W.A. DEWEY, M.D.
