On the joys of irrational, homeopathic remedies:

Everyone likes to question authority — especially nowadays when our inflamed egotism demands it in order to establish our individuality in a mass society. What better way to do so than to reject the vast, impersonal apparatus of modern scientific medicine, which consumes more and more of our economic product with diminishing returns, and resort to some pseudo-ancient hocus-pocus propagated by modern witches and wizards.

It is also extremely gratifying to know that one’s condition is beyond the reach of the most sophisticated treatment that science can offer, but is susceptible to something more in harmony with the spiritual vibrations of the universe. This suggests that one’s body and soul is a refined one, not like that of the common herd, whose grossness responds to such crudities as surgery and pharmacology.

Dalrymple in the Spectator