Citations:specificker

English citations of specifickers, Specifickers, and specificker

Noun

1847 1848	1852–3	1860 1860 1862 1863 1865 1865 1866 1866 1867 1869	1876 1878	1880	1894	1902
1840s	1850s	1860s	1870s	1880s	1890s	1900s

• 1847 July, John James Drysdale, John Rutherfurd Russell, and Robert Ellis Dudgeon (editors), The British Journal of Homœopathy [hereafter: BJH] V, № xxi, “Dr. G. Schmid’s Homœopathic Treatment with Undiluted Medicines”, pages 257–258, editors’ preamble:

  While all are held together by the principle “similia similibus curantur,” each thinks the subject of dose an open question; few (if any) abide by Hahnemann’s latest standard of decillionths; those who arrogate to themselves the appellation of orthodox Hahnemannians have travelled far away, under the guidance of Gross, into the mystic regions of the 200th, 800th, and 10,000th dilutions, while the section, by the former styled specifickers, have gradually descended to the lowest numerals in the scale of dilutions until they have attained their ultima Thule in the Schmidian tinctures and first triturations.

• 1848 January, J.J. Drysdale, J.R. Russell, and R.E. Dudgeon (editors), opere citato BJH: volume VI, № xxiii, “Critical Investigation of the Subject of the Dose”, page 32:

  It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose (and into this error we think Schmid and some others have fallen), that a sort of precisionized Allopathy is the whole of Homœopathy; such an opinion would, we think, merit to its entertainers the term of specifickers in the opprobrious sense used by Gross and others.

• 1852–3, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Homœopathy (1854), lecture III: “On Specific Medicine, and Attempts at a Theory of Cure”, page 54:

  Not of the character of such specific-hunters, but the very reverse of such, are those who have been derisively termed specifickers by their opponents, who usually arrogate to themselves the title of pures or Hahnemannians. Some difference there must be between the specifickers and the pures, else had they not formed themselves into two different schools. The difference does not, I believe, consist in any want of that spirit of individualization so necessary for the selection of the appropriate drug on the part of the so-called specifickers, but rather that they endeavour more than their rivals to bring the light of modern pathology to bear on the investigation of the morbid case, and seek to refer, when possible the array of symptoms to the derangement of some particular organ or system; in other words, they endeavour to arrive at the pathology of the disease, natural or artificial. The term specific, as applied to homœopathy, is, as I have shown, quite Hahnemannic, and might be adopted just as well as any of the other terms that have at various times been proposed by those who have taken objection to the term homœopathy.

• 1860, Frederic Foster Quin, Stephen Yeldham, Hugh Cameron, and John Rutherfurd Russell (editors), Annals and Transactions of the British Homœopathic Society, and of the London Homœopathic Hospital [hereafter: ATBHS] I, page 332:

  The class of homœopathic practitioners, called in Germany specifickers, endeavoured to find one remedy for each disease; but they were the most slipshod practitioners in our ranks.

• 1860 April, J.J. Drysdale, R.E. Dudgeon, and G. Atkin (editors), opere citato BJH: volume XVIII, № lxxii: Clotar Müller, “Repertorium or Therapeutics?”, page 178:

  It is remarkable, though doubtless, not difficult to explain, by the inward nexus of causes in the subject, that even in this question, the same old line of demarcation between different parties is found, which has from the beginning divided our body. The so-called Purists and ultra-Hahnemannists call out for a Repertorium, while the Free-thinkers or Specifickers demand a therapeutic manual. Here we have the same split that formerly divided the micro and the macro-dosists, and upon that occasion, the reflective men declared truly that the dose question was not the principium litis, but only the incipium.

• ibidem, page 179:

  The one set of opponents are as above said, the so-called Specifickers. These, as is well-known, chiefly rely in the choice of the remedy on certain groups of symptoms, intimately related to the pathology and diagnosis of the disease, and to the so-called general character of the action of the medicine (which, no doubt, is originally deduced from the provings); and also allow great influence to the clinical experience in the final decision: therefore they pay less heed to the more remote and subjective symptoms, and fear that by means of a Repertory, the mechanical and injudicious covering of symptoms may be encouraged and promoted.

• ibidem, page 180:

  Every one who uses the Materia Medica, gathered from the provings according to the law of similarity in the cure of disease, thus recognises the fundamental law of homœopathy, must desire a good Repertorium, because such facilitates, and, indeed, renders possible the access to the Materia Medica. Even the Specifickers are, therefore, as we have seen, not opponents in principle, but only fear its abuse, and only expect a greater degree of utility from a special Homœopathic manual of Therapeutics.

• 1862 January, J.J. Drysdale and R.E. Dudgeon (editors), opere citato BJH: volume XX, № lxxix, “Review: Drs. Peters’ and Snelling’s Science and Art of Medicine”, page 124:

  In fine, the real fact of the matter we apprehend is simply this, that the degree of homœopathicity that suffices for cure is not accurately fixed, and as we recede from complete homœopathicity, a certain margin is left within which specifics given in more massive doses may still have curative effects. This margin may, no doubt, contain the specifickers and Rademacherians and Trousseauist substitutivists.

• 1863, J.J. Drysdale, R.E. Dudgeon, and Richard Hughes (editors), opere citato BJH: volume XXI, № lxxxv, “Review: Wilson, Cockburn, and Cameron on Hempel”, page 465:

  In these matters we think he has been fully answered by Dr. Cameron and Mr. Wilson, who vindicate the Hahnemannic principle of pushing the provings to the fullest development of detail, while Dr. Cockburn contends for the more general knowledge of the action of medicines, such as is sufficient to content the specificker, as being on the whole easier to attain and more likely to be correct.

• ibidem, page 467:

  Such cases are useful as advancing our knowledge, but they do not favour either one or the other party, either the specificker or the Hahnemannist. […] On the other hand, the more the specificker relies on the merely general action of the drug (often, indeed, partly ascertained ab usu in morbis), the more he approaches to the allopathists, who will, ere long, equal him or even surpass him, if indeed they do not do so already often, as allopathy is much altered, and many medicines are given alone, and more faith in their specific powers is displayed since the establishment of Homœopathy.

• 1865 June 1st, F.F. Quin, S. Yeldham, H. Cameron, and J.R. Russell (editors), opere citato ATBHS: volume IV (1866), № xxi: Hugh Cameron quoted in the discussion “On the Chemical Treatment of Disease”, page 232:

  When I recall to mind the practice of Homœopathy during the latter years of Hahnemann’s life, and contrast it with the present, I confess that I can scarcely recognise them as the same method of treatment. In the former period, the great principle of our creed was of universal application and faith among its disciples. It is true that there were in Germany, at that time, numbers of eminent physicians who differed greatly from Hahnemann on the question of the dose (for they administered the mother tinctures); whom he disowned, and designated “specifickers,” in terms of contempt and indignation. But these gentlemen never deviated from a purely dynamic practice, and never dreamt of treating any disease, of whatever nature it might be, on chemical, or any other than strictly Homœopathic principles.

• 1865 July, J.J. Drysdale, R.E. Dudgeon, and R. Hughes (editors), opere citato BJH: volume XXIII, № xciii: Clotar Müller, “My Contribution Towards the Solution of the Dose-question”, page 360:

  Now a more severe reproach was never made by the extreme orthodox against the specifickers! Where then remains their consistency? or is that by any chance consistency?

• ibidem, “Review: Treatment of Rheumatism, Epilepsy, and Fever, by Dr. J. R. Russell”, page 472:

  We have lately read with great interest Dr. Handfield Jones’s Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System. In these we have a good example of the newest tendency of therapeutic progress, and one which is mainly brought about by the influence of homœopathy. They are, in fact, very similar to the practical observations of those of our school who draw the indications of the medicine mainly from clinical experience, guided by the more general physiological action of the medicines, i.e., those called specifickers by the more complete homœopathists, who keep in view the finer shades of the pathogenesis. […] If any one will look back to Sydenham’s complex prescriptions, and compare them with those of physicians of our day, he will find a much greater difference between the two, than between the latter and ours. And with H. Jones and Dr. Laylock, he will find positively no difference at all between some cases of these and the specifickers of our school.

• 1866 April, J.J. Drysdale, R.E. Dudgeon, and R. Hughes (editors), opere citato BJH: volume XXIV, № xcvi, “On the Arrangement of the Materia Medica, by Dr. Drysdale”, page 239:

  The habit once formed in respect to some medicines, soon extends to the better proved medicines, and the practitioner becomes a mere specificker.

• 1866 July, A.D. Lippe, “The Arrangement of the Materia Medica” in The Hahnemannian Monthly I, № xii, pages 439–440:

  The same new and numerous lights which lead the intelligent mariner safely to port, and enable the diligent student to make great cures, — will but lead the bewildered “ancient mariner” to destruction, and the “specificker” to disappointment. Just as the ignorant mariner complains of false lights, so the disappointed “specificker” complains of false and unreliable symptoms.

• 1867 October, J.J. Drysdale, R.E. Dudgeon, and R. Hughes (editors), opere citato BJH: volume XXV, № cii, “On the Allopathic and Homœopathic Use of Specifics, by Dr. Drysdale”, page 594:

  This every one ought to do at least, and beyond that he ought to apply the method of discovery to some cases at least every day. Without that, he will very soon sink into a mere routinist and specificker.

• 1869, Carl Müller, “Peccavi! Vel Peccavi?” in the American Homœopathic Observer VI, page 270:

  Before Prof. M. and “we” were in our teens, even while in our squares (diaper, you know), a certain set styled themselves disciples of pure homœopathy and derided all who differed with them as “Specifickers.”

• 1876 June 26th–July 1st, Transactions of the World’s Homœopathic Convention: Held at Philadelphia Under the Auspices of the American Institute of Homœopathy, at Its 29th Session, June 26–July 1, 1876 II (1880), page 20:

  From this time up to 1836 contests were gradually developed between Hahnemann and his followers, which led to a division between the old Hahnemannians and the so-called specifickers, the latter favoring more progress.

• 1878, The North American Journal of Homœopathy, American Medical Union, volume XXVII, page 253:

  He was, what the Germans called, a “specificker,” fitting his remedies to diseases rather than to individuals; his potencies were chiefly those from the 1st to the 4th decimal; and one who followed his practice for a time, told me that he not uncommonly alternated.

• 1880 October 7th, R.E. Dudgeon and R. Hughes (editors), opere citato BJH: volume XXXIX, № clv (January 1881): John W. Hayward, “Presidential Address”, page 32:

  The men who exclusively and permanently practise with strong tinctures and crude drugs are almost certainly non-symptomatic practitioners, men who are content to take general and pathological indications, and to treat according to the name of the disease — mere specifickers — and very likely to fall back altogether to mere routine and usus in morbis practice.

• 1894, The Journal of the British Homœopathic Society II, page 237:

  Inasmuch, however, as the symptoms are all mixed together this plan does not lend itself to minute or true symptomatic practice, but it tends to lead one to be rather a specificker than a homœopath; and the man who relies exclusively on it can never become more than a generalising, uncertain, and somewhat guessing practitioner.

• 1902, Richard Hughes, The Principles and Practice of Homœopathy, Leath & Ross (third edition), page 144:

  In acute and typical diseases, the fewer your remedies the better: but beyond this range, you can hardly have too many. It is here that the mere specificker, the mere organopathist fails; while the full method of Hahnemann wins victories which are a continual source of delight.

• 1903, Leopold Casper, Functional Diagnosis of Kidney Disease with Especial Reference to Renal Surgery, P. Blakiston’s son & Company, page 18:

  In his famous essay “Specificker und Specifickes,” Virchow writes: “One may pay ever so great attention to anatomical, morphological, and histological study; one may spend further time in the research of indispensable and requisite fundamental principles of knowledge; but should one on that account declare that they are the only sure methods, that they alone are to be followed, that they alone are authoritative?[”]

Adjective

• 1928, Ralph Albert Parlette (editor), The Lyceum Magazine XXXVIII, page 55:

  “Boy, you gotta be mo’ specificker. How do you expec’ me to answer you when you ain’t, to be exac’, asked me nothin’ yet?”

• 1985 May 8th, “Steve Upstill” (username), “Re: embargo and punishment” in: “JoSH” (username), “Poli-Sci Digest V5 #19” (1985 May 14th) in fa.poli-sci, Usenet:

  Well, I tend to think of punishment as a means, rather than an end. It’s awfully satisfying, especially if you are powerful enough to resist retaliation, but in the conduct of mature nations, I expect it, at least nominally, to be directed toward some other goal, the specificker the better.

• 2000 July 2nd, “Thomas Dempster” (username), “-I- Did anyone else happen to be…” in rec.music.tori-amos, Usenet:

  …in Washington, DC today? (Sunday, 2 July)
  More specifically, was there anyone at the Smithsonian-sponsored Tibetan Culture festival?
  Specificker still, was there anyone who saw His Holiness the Dalai Lama and heard him give a prayer service and moving speech?
  Action! Adventure! Excitement!

• 2006 June 13th, “Bob Geary” (username), “random personal questions” in alt.fan.cecil-adams, Usenet:

  So I guess what’s wrong with “crisp” is that it can be used to describe both a clear New England winter morning and the perfectly-cooked skin of a Peking duck, when the two have almost nothing in common, and I always prefer two specificker words to one generaller one.