I9 paw. 41 q Bý - v Z116 ia, 6 iR I ek...... C7i " ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ORGANON OF MEDICINE, BY SAMUEL HAHNEMANN. TRANSLATED FROM THE FIFTH GERMAN EDITION BY R. E. DUDGEON, M.D. Aude sapere. LONDON: W. HEADLAND, 15, PRINCES STREET, HANOVER SQUARE. 1849. London: W. Davy & Son, Printers, 8, Gilbert Street, Oxford Street. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. THE immortal work that contains the full exposition of that glorious and beneficent system of medicine, destined, probably at no very distant date, to supersede entirely all other systems and modes of treatment, whose every page abounds in profound and original thought, and which in this the last edition that underwent the Master's supervision, contains the principles of his doctrine in their most perfect and matured state, needs not the recommendation of overstrained eulogy, and requires no introductory essay nor explanatory notes. Perfect and complete in itself, it leaves no point of doctrine unexplained, no technical detail untouched, no adverse argument'unanswered. A critical essay might indeed a 2 11TRANSLATOR'.1S PREFACE. be written to indicate and perhaps to refute the Author's peculiar physiological notions, but these may readily be gathered from a careful perusal of the text, and their subversion would in no way affect the value of the therapeutic principles and practice inculcated. To dwell upon them, therefore, in this place, were superfluous, but I may be permitted to say a few words respecting my own share in the following pages; I refer to the translation. Convinced that what the English student of Homceopathy required was an exact reproduction of the Founder's great work, I have conscientiously endeavoured to render my translation as literal as possible, and as far as the diffterent genius of the two languages admitted of it, I have retained the same expressions, figures of speech, and even the somewhat cumbrous and tautological style of the original, no doubt to the horror of the mere philological dilettante, should this book unfortunately happen to fall into the hands of such a person, but to- the satisfaction of the earnest student, who would TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. iii doubtless consent to dispense with the amenities of rhetorical grace for the conviction that the exact meaning of the Author has nowhere been sacrificed to any fancied elegance of style or expression.* The notes I have introduced, distinguished by being enclosed within brackets [], refer almost entirely to the views and practice of the Author subsequent to the publication of this last edition, and will be found interesting as they exhibit considerable differences from those in the text, and would in all likelihood have been substituted for these by Hahnemann had he lived to publish a sixth edition of his work. i In some cases I have taken, what many may think unwarrantable liberties with the mother tongue in the creation and new adaptation of several words not usually met with in ordinary, but common enough in homceopathic writings. These are chiefly: dynamize, potentize (dynamisiren, potenziren), dynamization (Dynamisation, Potenzirung), potency (Potenz) in the sense of a potent agent. If it be objected that these are not English words, it may be replied that neither are they German, but were originally coined by Hahnemann, to express what there were no precise words for in his own tongue, and what our own is equally deficient in, as faithful translators, therefore, there is nothing for us, but to anglicize them as best we may. iv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. By an accidental coincidence the day on which I have completed the translation of his masterpiece, brings round the ninety-fifth anniversary of the birth of this extraordinary Reformer of the medical art. The advanced age to which he lived (he died but six years since) made it almost seem as if the Sage of a former epoch was privileged himself to hand down to posterity the discoveries he had made in a previous century for the benefit of all succeeding ages. The truth, which in the latest edition of the Organon attained its perfect development, first feebly dawned upon his mind in 1790, and six years later he recorded these imperfect glimmerings of the pure light in the periodical medical Journal of his friend Hufeland; in 1805 appeared his "Medicine of Experience,"t wherein the great principle is more boldly enunciated. The whole doctrine, systematized and illustrated, * Essay on a new principle, &c., translated in the volume published by the British Homceopathic Association for 1848. - Translated in Vols. I and II of the British Journal of Homoeopathy. TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. was given to the world in 1810, in the first edition of this work, under the title of "Organon of rational medicine;" a second edition with the title significantly abbreviated into "Organon of medicine" appeared in 1819, a third improved and enlarged one in 1824, a fourth* also enlarged in 1829, and this, the fifth edition with numerous alterations and additions, in 1833. These dates shew the slow and gradual growth of the homeopathic doctrine in the Discoverer's mind, and give us the assurance that in the present work every point and feature of the new system has been carefully weighed, and as far as possible, experimentally proved, by the cautious and accurately observing Father of Modern Medicine. The portrait which accompanies this volume is engraved from a picture painted by the talented Mme. Hahnemann shortly before her husband's decease, and is acknowledged to be an excellent * An English translation of this, by Mr. Devrient, was published. in 1833. vi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. likeness, by those, who, from close intimacy with the illustrious original, ought to be the best judges. R. E. D. LoNDoN, 10th April, 1849. PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. IN order to give a general notion of the treatment of diseases pursued by the old school of medicine (Allopathy), I may observe, that it presupposes the existence sometimes of excess of blood (plethora- which is never present), sometimes of morbid matters and acridities, hence it taps off the life's blood and exerts itself either to clear away the imaginary morbid matter, or to conduct it elsewhere (by emetics, purgatives, sialagogues, diaphoretics, diuretics, drawing plasters, setons, issues, &c.), in the vain belief that the disease will thereby be weakened and substantially eradicated, in place of which, the patient's sufferings are thereby increased, and by such and other painful appliances the forces and nutritious juices, indispensable to the curative process, are abstracted from the organism. Viii PREFACE TO It assails the body with large doses of powerful medicines, often repeated in rapid succession for a long time, whose long-enduring, not unfrequently frightful effects it knows not, and which it, purposely it would almost seem, makes unrecognisable by the commingling of several such unknown substances in one prescription, and by their long-continued employment, it develops in the body new and often ineradicable medicinal diseases. Whenever it can, too, it employs, in order to keep in favour with its patient,* remedies that immediately suppress and hide the morbid symptoms by opposition (contraria contrariis) for a short time (palliative treatment), but that leave the disposition to these symptoms (the disease itself) strengthened and aggravated. It considers the affection on the exterior of the body as purely local and existing there independently, and vainly supposes that it has cured it, when it has driven it away by means of external remedies, so that the internal affection is thereby compelled to break out on a nobler and more important part. When it knows not what else to try " For the same object the practised Allopath delights to invent a fixed name, by preference a Greek one, for the malady, in order to make the patient believe that he has long known this disease like an old acquaintance, and hence is the fittest person to cure it. PREFACE TO loudly against them. It is under the old physician who has been at last gradually convinced of the mischievous nature of his so-called art, after many years of misdeeds, and who only continues to treat the severest diseases with strawberry syrup mixed with plantain water (i. e. with nothing) that the smallest number are injured and die. This non-healing art, which for many centuries has been in full possession of the power to dispose of the life and death of patients according to its own good will and pleasure, and in that period has shortened the lives of ten times as many human beings as the most destructive wars, and rendered many millions of patients more diseased and wretched than they were originally-this Allopathy, I shall first expose somewhat more minutely, before teaching in detail its exact opposite, the newly-discovered, true healing art. With regard to the latter (Homceopathy) it is quite otherwise. It can easily convince every reflecting person that the diseases of man depend on no substance, no acridity, that is, no material principle of disease, but that they are solely spiritual (dynamic) derangements of the spiritual power that animates the human body (the vital force). Homceopathy knows that a cure can only take place by the reaction of the THE FIFTH EDITION. xi vital force against the rightly chosen remedy that has been administered, and that the cure will be certain and rapid in proportion to the strength with which the vital force still prevails in the patient. Hence Homoeopathy avoids everything in the slightest degree enfeebling,* and as much as possible every excitation of pain, for pain also diminishes the strength, and hence it employs for the cure ONLY those medicines whose effects in altering and deranging (dynamically) the health, it knows accurately, and from these it selects one whose health altering power (its medicinal disease) is capable of removing the natural disease in question by similarity (similia similibus), and this it administers to the patient simply and alone, but in rare and minute doses (so small, that without occasioning pain, or weakening, they just suffice to remove the natural malady by means of the reacting energy of the vital * Homoeopathy sheds not a drop of blood, administers no emetics, purgatives, laxatives or diaphoretics, drives off no external affection by external means, prescribes no warm baths nor medicated clysters, applies no spanish flies nor mustard plasters, no setons, no issues, creates no ptyalism, burns not with moxa nor red hot iron to the very bone, and the like, but gives with its own hand its own preparations of simple, uncompounded medicines which it is accurately acquainted with, never subdues pain by opium, &c. xii PREFACE TO force), with this result, that without weakening, injuring or torturing him in the very least, the natural disease is extinguished, and the patient, even whilst his cure is going on, gains in strength, and thus is cured-an apparently easy, but actually troublesome and difficult business and one requiring much thought, but which restores the patient to perfect health, without suffering and in a short time-and thus it is a salutary and blessed business. Thus Homoeopathy is a perfectly simple system of medicine, remaining always fixed in its principles as in its practice, which, like the doctrine whereon it is based, if rightly apprehended will be found to be so exclusive (and in that way only, serviceable), that as the doctrine is pure, so must the practice be also, and all backward straying * to the pernicious routine of the old school (whose opposite it is, as day is to night) " I am therefore sorry that I once gave the advice savouring of Allopathy, to apply to the back in psoric diseases a resinous plaster to cause itching, and to employ the finest electrical sparks in paralytic affections. For as both these appliances have seldom proved of service, and have furnished the bastard homceopathists with an excuse for their allopathic transgressions, I am grieved I should ever have proposed them, and I hereby solemnly retract them-for this reason also, that, since then, our homoeopathic system has advanced so near to perfection that they are now no longer required. THE FIFTH EDITION. xi1ii is totally impossible, otherwise it ceases to deserve the honourable name of Homoeopathy. That some erring physicians who would wish to be considered Homoeopathists, engraft some, to them more convenient, allopathic bad practices upon their nominally homceopathic treatment, is owing to ignorance of the doctrine, laziness, contempt for suffering humanity, and ridiculous conceit, and, in addition to unpardonable negligence in searching for the best homoeopathic specific for each case of disease, has often a base love of gain and other dishonourable motives for its spring-and for its result? that they cannot cure all important and serious diseases (which pure and careful Homaoopathy can), and that they send many of their patients to that place whence no one returns, whilst the friends console themselves with the reflexion, that everything (including every hurtful allopathic process!) has been done for the departed. SAMUEL IHAH-INEMANN. Cwthien, 28th Mlarch, 1833. While these sheets were passing through the press, the translator's time and attention were much occupied by other matters; this must be his apology for the following errata, which he requests the reader to correct. Page 14, line 5 from top, for aneurysm, read aneurism. Pag'e 107, line 3 from bottom, for Lebell., read Libell. Page 165, line 5 from bottom, after depend, insert is shewn by. Page 243, line 3 from top, for of two medicines, read of the two medicines. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Review of the medication, allopathy, and palliative treatment that have prevailed to the present time in the old school of medicine.. 1 Examples of homoeopathic cures performed unwittingly by physicians of the old school of medicine............................... 57 Non-medical persons also have found the treatment on the principle of similarity of action to be the only efficacious mode.......... 97 NOTE.-Isopathy............................................ 100 Some physicians of an earlier period even, suspected that this was the most excellent mode of treatment............................ 106 TEXT OF THE ORGANON............ 109 ~ i, ii. The sole mission of the physician is to cure rapidly, gently, permanently; NOTE.-not to construct theoretical systems, nor to make attempts to explain phenomena. iii, iv. He must investigate what is to be cured in diseases, and know what is curative in the various medicines, in order to be able to adapt the latter to the former, and must also understand how to preserve the health of men. v. Attention to exciting and fundamental causes and other circumstances, as auxiliaries to treatment. vi. For the physician, the disease consists only of the totality of its symptoms. NOTE.-The old school's vain attempts to discover the essential nature of disease (prima causa). vii. Whilst paying attention to those circumstances (~ v.) the physician needs only to remove the totality of the symptoms, in order to cure the disease. NOTE 1.-The cause that manifcstly produces and maintains tie disease should be removed. NOTE 2.-Impropriety of the symptomatic palliative mode of treatment directed towards a single symptom. xvi CONTENTS. ~ viii. If all the symptoms be eradicated, the disease is always cured internally also. NOTE.-This is stupidly denied by the old school. ix. During health a spiritual power (autocracy, vital force) animates the organism and keeps it in harmonious order. x. Without this animating, spiritual power the organism is dead. xi. In disease, the vital force only is primarily morbidly deranged, and expresses its sufferings (the internal change) by abnormal sensations and functions of the organism. NOTE.-It is unnecessary for the treatment to know how the vital force produces the symptoms. xii. By the disappearance of the sum total of the symptoms by the cure, the whole affection of the vital force, that is to say, the whole internal and external morbid state is also removed. xiii. To regard those diseases that are not surgical as a peculiar distinct thing residing in the human frame is an absurdity which has rendered allopathy so pernicious. xiv. Everything of a morbid nature that is curable makes itself known to the physician by symptoms of disease. xv. The affection of the diseased vital force and the symptoms of disease thereby produced constitute an inseparable whole-they are one and the same. xvi. It is only by the spiritual influences of morbific noxious agents that our spiritual vital force can become ill, and in like manner, only by the spiritual (dynamic) operation of medicines that it can be again restored to health. xvii. The practitioner, therefore, only needs to take away the totality of the symptoms of the disease, and he has removed the entire disease. NOTE 1, 2.-Illustrative examples. xviii. The collection of symptoms is the only indication, the only guide to the selection of a remedy. xix. The alteration of the health in diseases (the symptoms of the disease) cannot be cured by the medicines otherwise, than in so far as the latter have the power of also producing alterations in man's health. xx. This power of medicines to alter the health can only be ascertained in their operations on (healthy) persons. xxi. The morbid symptoms that medicines produce in healthy individuals, are the only thing wherefrom we can learn their power to cure disease. CONTENTS. xvii ~ xxii. If experience should shew, that by medicines that possess similar symptoms to the disease the latter would be most certainly and permanently cured, we must select for the cure medicines with similar symptoms-but should it shew, that the disease is most certainly and pemanently cured by opposite medicinal symptoms, we must choose for the cure medicines with opposite symptoms. NOTE.-The employment of medicines, whose symptoms have no real (pathological) relation to the symptoms of the disease, but which act on the body in a different manner, is the allopathic method, which is to be rejected. xxiii. By opposite medicinal symptoms (antipathic treatment) persisting symptoms of disease are not cured. xxiv, xxv. The other remaining method of treatment, the homceopathic, by means of medicines with similar symptoms, is the only one that experience shews to be always serviceable. xxvi. This is dependent on the therapeutic law of nature, that a weak dynamic affection in the living organism is permanently extinguished by one that is very similar to and stronger than it, only differing from it in kind. NOTE.-This applies both to physical affections and moral maladies. xxvii. The curative power of medicines, therefore, depends on the symptoms they have similar to the disease. xxviii, xxix. Attempt to explain this therapeutic law of nature. NOTE 1.-Illustrations of it. [NOTE 2.-Later notions on the same subject.] xxx-xxxiii. The human body is much more disposed to let its health be altered by medicinal powers than by natural disease. xxxiv, xxxv. The correctness of the homoeopathic therapeutic law is shewn in the want of success attending every unhomceopathic treatment of a long-standing disease, and in this also, that two natural diseases meeting together in the body, if they be dissimilar to each other, do not remove nor cure one another. xxxvi. I. The older disease existing in the body, if it be equally strong or stronger, keeps away from the patient a new, dissimilar disease. xxxvii. Thus, under unhomceopathic treatment that is not violent, chronic diseases remain as they were. xxxviii. II. Or a new, stronger disease, attacking an individual already ill, suppresses, only as long as it lasts, the old disease that is dissimilar to it and already existing in the body, but never removes it. Xviii CONTENTS. ~ xxxix. It is just in this way that violent treatment with allopathic drugs does not cure a chronic disease, but suppresses it only during the influence of the powerful medicines, which are unable to excite any symptom similar to the disease; after that, the chronic disease makes it appearance as bad or worse than before. xl. III. Or the new disease, after having long acted on the body, joins the old one that is dissimilar to it, and thence arises a double (complex) disease; neither of these two dissimilar diseases removes the other. xli. Much more frequently, than in the course of nature, an artificial disease caused by the long continued employment of powerful, inappropriate (allopathic) medicine in ordinary practice, associates itself with the old natural disease, which is dissimilar to (and therefore not curable by) the former, and the chronic patient now becomes doubly diseased. xlii. These diseases that thus complicate one another, take, on account of their dissimilarity, each the place in the organism suited for it. xliii, xliv. But quite otherwise is it on the accession of a stronger disease to a preexisting one similar to it; in that case the latter will be removed and cured by the former. xlv. Explanation of this phenomenon. xlvi. Instances of chronic diseases being cured by the accidental accession of another, similar, but stronger disease. xlvii-xlix. From the concurrence of diseases, even in the ordinary course of nature, it is only one that displays similar symptoms that can remove and cure the other, a dissimilar disease can never do this; this will instruct the physician what kind of medicines he can certainly cure with, namely, with homoeopathic ones alone. 1. Nature has but few diseases to send to the homoeopathic relief of other diseases, and these its remedial agents are accompanied by many inconveniences. li. On the other hand, the physician has innumerable remedial agents, possessing great advantages over those. lii. From what takes place in nature, the physician may learn never to treat diseases with other than homoeopathically selected medicines, whereby he will be able to cure them, which he never could do with heterogeneous (allopathic) remedies, that never cure, but only destroy the patient. CONTENTS. Xix ~ liii, liv. There are but three possible modes of employing medicines against diseases: 1. the homoeopathic, which alone is efficacious; Iv. 2. the allopathic, or heteropa'hic; Ivi. 3. the antipathic (enantigathic), which is merely palliative. NOTE.-Remarks on IL.pathy, as it is termed. lvii. The method of treatment in which a remedy which displays an opposite action (contraria contrariis) is prescribed for a single symptom of the disease. Iviii. This antipathic procedure is not defective merely because it is directed against a single symptom of the disease only, but also, because in persisting ailments, after it produces a short apparent amelioration, real aggravation ensues. NOTE.-Testimonies of authors to the truth of this. lix. Injurious effects of some antipathic modes of treatment. lx. Increasing the dose at every repetition of a palliative never cures a chronic affection, but occasions still greater evil, lxi. whence physicians ought to have inferred the utility of an opposite way to cure, the only good one, to wit, the homoeopathic. lxii. The reason of the injurious nature of the palliative, and of the sole efficacy of the homoeopathic employment of medicines lxiii. depends upon the difference between the primary action that takes place from the influence of every medicine, and the reaction or secondary action subsequently effected by the organism (the vital force). lxiv. Explanation of the primary and secondary actions. lxv. Examples of both. lxvi. From the smallest homceopathic doses of medicine employed in treatment, the secondary action of the vital force merely shews itself in the restoration of the balance of health. lxvii. From these truths, the salutary character of the homoeopathic treatment, as also the perverted nature of the antipathic (palliative) system are evident. NOTE.-Cases in which the antipathic employment of medicines is alone useful. lxviii. How is the efficacy of the homceopathic system proved by these truths? lxix. How is the injurious character of the antipathic treatment proved by these truths? NOTE 1.-Opposite sensations do not neutralize each other in the human sensorium, they are not, therefore, like opposite substances in chemistry. NOTE 2.-Illustrative example. XX CONTENTS. l Ixx. Short summary of the homoeopathic system of medicine. lxxi. The three points necessary for curing: 1. to ascertain the disease; 2. to ascertain the effects of the medicines; and, 3. their appropriate employment. lxxii. General survey of diseases-acute, chronic. lxxiii. Acute diseases that attack single individuals, sporadic, epidemic, acute miasms. lxxiv. The worst kind of chronic diseases are those produced by the unskilfulness of allopathic physicians. lxxv. These are the most incurable. lxxvi. It is only when the vital force is still sufficiently powerful, that the injury can then be repaired, often only after a long time, if the original disease be at the same time homoeopathically eradicated. lxxvii. Diseases inappropriately named chronic. lxxviii. Chronic diseases proper; they all arise from chronic miasms. lxxix. Syphilis and sycosis. lxxx, lxxxi. Psora; it is the mother of all true chronic diseases, except the syphilitic and sycotic. NOTE.-Names of diseases in the ordinary pathology. lxxxii. Among the more specific remedies for these chronic miasms, especially for psora, the selection of those for the cure of each individual case of chronic disease is to be conducted all the more carefully. lxxxiii. Qualifications for apprehending the picture of the disease. lxxxiv-xcix. Instructions to the physician for investigating and tracing the picture of the disease. c-cii. Investigation of the epidemic diseases in particular. ciii. In like manner must the fundamental cause of (non-syphilitic) chronic diseases be investigated and the great entire picture of psora be displayed. civ. Utility of noting down in writing the picture of the disease, for the purpose of curing, and in the progress of the treatment. NOTE.-How the old school physicians go about the investigation of the morbid state. cv-cxiv. Preliminaries to be attended to in investigating the pure effects of medicines on healthy individuals. Primary action. Secondary action. cxv. Alternating actions of medicines. cxvi, cxvii. Idiosyncrasies. CONTENTS. xxi ~ cxviii, cxix. The action of every medicine differs from that of every other. NoTE.-There can be no such things as surrogates. cxx. Every medicine, therefore, must be carefully proved to ascertain the peculiarity of its special effects. cxxi-cxl. Mode of proceeding, when we make trial of them on other persons. cxli. The experiments of the healthy physician with medicines upon himself are the best. cxlii. The investigation of the pure effects of medicines in diseases is difficult. cxliii-cxlv. From such investigations of the pure effects of medicines on healthy persons, only, can a real materia medica be formed. cxlvi. The most appropriate therapeutic employment of medicines known according to their pure effects. cxlvii. The medicine most homoeopathically corresponding is the most suitable, is the specific remedy. cxlviii. Explanation of how a homoeopathic cure is probably effected. cxlix. The homoeopathic cure of a disease that has occurred suddenly is quickly effected; that of chronic diseases, however, demands proportionally more time. NOTE.-Difference betwixt pure homoeopathists and the mongrel sect. el. Slight ailments. cli. Important diseases have a number of symptoms. clii. For those with numerous striking symptoms a homeopathic remedy can be more certainly found. cliii. What kind of symptoms ought one chiefly to attend to in the choice of a remedy? cliv. A remedy as homoeopathic as it is possible to be, cures without much disturbance. clv. Cause of the freedom from disturbance of such cures. clvi. Cause of the slight exceptions to this. clvii-clx. The medicinal disease very similar, but somewhat superior in strength, to the original disease, termed also homceopathic aggravation. clxi. In chronic (psoric) diseases, the homoeopathic aggravations from (antipsoric) homoeopathic medicines occur during a period of several days, from time to time. xxii CONTENTS. ~ clxii-clxxi. Rules for treatment, when the supply of known medicines is too small to allow a perfect homoeopathic remedy to be discovered. clxxii-clxxxiv. Rules for the treatment of diseases with too few symptoms: one-sided diseases. clxxxv-cciii. Treatment of diseases with local symptoms; their external treatment is always injurious. cciv, ccv. All chronic affections and diseases properly so called (that are not merely produced and maintained by a bad mode of living), must be cured only from within, by the homoeopathic medicines appropriate for the miasm that lies at their root. ccvi. Preliminary investigation of the miasm that lies at their root, of the simple miasm, or its complications with a second (or even with a third). ccvii. Enquiry into the treatments previously employed. ccviii, ccix, The other preliminary enquiries necessary for the apprehension of the morbid picture of the chronic disease. ccx-ccxxx. Treatment of the so-called mental or moral diseases. ccxxxi, ccxxxii. The intermittent and alternating diseases. ccxxxiii, ccxxxiv. The periodical intermittent diseases. ccxxxv-ccxliv. The intermittent fevers. ccxlv-ccli. Mode of using the remedies. NOTE.-Repetition of the doses. [Later instructions and experience on this point.] cclii-cclvi. Signs of commencing improvement. cclvii, cclviii. False predilection for favourite remedies and improper aversion to other medicines. cclix-cclxi. Regimen in chronic diseases. NOTE.-Injurious things in the habits of life. cclxii, cclxiii. Diet in acute diseases. cclxiv-cclxvi. Selection of the most energetic, most genuine medicines. NoTE.-Change effected on some substances in their preparation for food. cclxvii. Preparation of the most powerful and most durable forms of medicines from plants that can be obtained fresh. cclxviii. Dry vegetable substances. NOTE.-Preparation of powders, so that they shall keep. cclxix-cclxxi. The mode of preparing crude medicinal substances, peculiar to homoeopathy, so as to develop their curative powers to the utmost. [NOTE.-Later technical improvements.] CONTENTS. xxiii ~ cclxxii-cclxxiv. Only one single, simple medicine should be given to the patient at one time. cclxxv-cclxxxvii. Strength of the doses for homoeopathic use-how they may be increased or diminished. Their dynamization. cclxxxviii-ccxcii. What parts of the body are more or less susceptible to the influence of the medicines? NOTE.-Advantages of the olfaction of highly potentized medicines over every other method of taking them. ccxciii, ccxciv. Animal magnetism (mesmerism). Its positive and negative employment. INTRODUCTION. Review of the medication, allopathiy, and palliative treatment that have prevailed to the present time in the old school of medicine. As long as men have existed they have been liable, individually or collectively, to diseases from physical or moral causes. In a rude state of nature but few remedial agents were required, as the simple mode of living ddmitted of but few diseases; with the civilization of mankind in the state, on the contrary, the occasions of disease and the necessity for medical aid increased in equal proportion. But ever since that time (soon after Hippocrates, therefore for 2500 years) men have occupied themselves with the treatment of the ever increasing multiplicity of diseases, who, led astray by their vanity, sought by reasoning and guessing to excogitate the mode of furnishing this aid. Innumerable and dissimilar ideas respecting the nature of diseases and their remedies sprang from so many dissimilar brains, and the theoretical views these gave rise to, they called (structures) systems, /B INTRODUCTION. anatomy, &c., I shall occupy myself here with the practical part of medicine only, with the healing art itself, in order to shew how it is that diseases have hitherto been so imperfectly treated. Far beneath my notice is that mechanical routine of treating precious human life according to prescription manuals, the continual publication of which shews, alas! how frequently they are still used. I pass it by unnoticed, as a scandal to the practitioners of the ordinary school. I speak merely of the medical art as hitherto practised, which, presuming on its antiquity, imagines itself to possess a scit~iUc character. The partisans of the old school of medicine flattered themselves that they could justly claim for it alone the title of " rational medicine," because they alone sought for, and strove to remove the cause of Jiooue, and were guided by nature in the treatment of diseases. Tolle causam! they cried incessantly: But they went no farther than this empty exclamation. They only fancied that they could discover the cause of disease; they did not discover it, however, as it is not perceptible, and not discoverable. For as far the greatest number of diseases are of dynamic (spiritual) origin and dynamic (spiritual) nature, their cause is therefore not perceptible to the senses; so they exerted themselves to imagine one, and from a survey of the parts of the normal, inanimate human body (anatomy), compared with the visible changes of the same internal parts in persons who had died of diseases (pathological B2 INTRODUCTION. anatomy), as also from what they could deduce from a comparison of the phenomena and functions in healthy life (physiology) with their endless alterations in the innumerable morbid states (pathology, semeiotics), to draw conclusions relative to the invisible process whereby the changes which take place in the inward being of man in diseases are effected-a dim picture of the imagination, which theoretical medicine regarded as its prima causa morbi,' and thus it was at 1 It would have been much more consonant with sane human reason and with the nature of things, had they, in order to be able to cure a disease, regarded the exciting cause as the causa morbi, and endeavoured to discover that, and thus been enabled successfully to employ the mode of treatment which had shewn itself useful in maladies having the same exciting cause, in those also of a similar origin, as for example, the same mercury is efficacious in an ulcer of the glans after impure coitus, as in all previous venereal chancresif, I say, they had aiscovered the exciting cause of all other (nonvenereal) chronic diseases to be an infection at one period or another with the itch miasm (psora), and had found for all these a common method of treatment, regard being had for the peculiarities of each individual case, whereby all and each of these chronic diseases might have been cured, then might they with justice have boasted that in the treatment of chronic diseases they had in view the only available and useful causa morborum chronicorum (non venereorum), and with this as a basis they might have treated such diseases with the best results. But during these many centuries they were unable to cure the millions of chronic diseases, because they knew not their origin in the psoric miasm (which was first discovered and afterwards provided with a suitable plan of treatment by homceopathy), and yet they vaunted that they alone kept in view the prima causa INTRODUCTION. one and the same time the proximate cause of the disease, and the internal essence of the disease, the disease itself-although, according to the principles of sane human reason, the cause of a thing or of an event, can never be at the same time the thing or the event itself. How could they then, without deceiving themselves, consider this imperceptible internal essence as the object to be treated, and prescribe medicines for it, whose curative powers were likewise generally unknown to them, and even give several such unknown medicines mixed together in what are termed prescriptions? But this sublime problem, the discovery, namely, a priori, of an internal invisible cause of disease, resolved itself, at least with the more astute physicians of the old school, into a search, under the guidance of the symptoms it is true, as to what might be held to be the probable general character of the case of disease before them;' whether it was spasm, or debility, or paralysis, or fever, or inflammation, or of these diseases in their treatment, and that they alone treated rationally, although they had not the slightest conception of the only useful knowledge of their psoric origin, and consequently they bungled the treatment of all chronic diseases! 1 Every physician who treats disease according to such general characters, however he may affect to claim the name of homoeopathist, is and ever will remain in fact a generalizing allopath, for without the most minute individualization, homceopathy is not conceivable. INTRODUCTION. induration, or obstruction of this or that part, or excess of blood (plethora), deficiency or excess of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, or nitrogen in the juices, exaltation or depression of the functions of the arterial, venous, or capillary system, change in the relative proportion of the factors of sensibility, irritability, or-reproduction '-conjectures that have been dignified by the followers of the old school with the title of causal indication, and considered to be the only possible rationality in medicine; but which were assumptions, too fallacious and hypothetical, to prove of any practical utility-incapable, even had they been well grounded, of indicating the most appropriate remedy for a case of disease; flattering, indeed, to the vanity of the learned theorist, but usually leading astray when used as guides to practice, and wherein there was evidenced more of ostentation than of an earnest search for the curative indication. And how often has it happened that, for example, spasm or paralysis seemed to be in one part of the organism, while in another part inflammation was apparently present. Or, on the other hand, whence are the certain remedies for each of these pretended general characters to be derived? Those that would certainly be of benefit could be none other than the specific medicines, that is, those whose action is analogous1 to the morbid 1 Now termed homceopathic. INTRODUCTION. irritation; whose employment, however, is denounced and forbidden' by the old school as highly injurious, because observation has shewn that in consequence of the receptivity for homogeneous irritation being so highly increased in diseases, such medicines in the usual large doses are dangerous to life. The old school never dreamt of smaller, and of extremely small doses. Accordingly no attempt was made to cure in the direct (the most natural) way, by means of homogeneous, specific medicines; nor could it be done, as the effects of most medicines were, and continued to remain, unknown, and even had they been known, it would have been impossible to hit on the right medicine, with such generalizing views as were entertained. However, perceiving that it was more consistent with reason to seek out a straight path, where that was possible, than to take a circuitous course, the old school of medicine believed it might cure diseases in a direct manner, by the removal of the (imaginary) material cause of disease-for to physicians of the ordi1 "Where experience shewed the curative power of homceopathically acting remedies, whose mode of action could not be explained, the difficulty was avoided by calling it specific, and further investigation was stifled by this actually unmeaning word. The homogeneous excitant remedies, the true specific (homceopathic) agents, however, had long previously been prohibited as of very injurious influence." --RA_, On the value of the Homcoopathic method of treatment. Heidelberg, 1824, pp. 101, 102. INTRODUCTION. nary school, while investigating and forming a judgment upon a disease, and not less while seeking for the curative indication, it was next to impossible to divest themselves of these material ideas, and to regard the nature of the spiritual-corporeal organism, as a being so highly potentialized, that its vital changes of sensations and functions, which are called diseases, must be produced and effected chiefly, if not solely, by dynamic (spiritual) influences, and could not be effected in any other way. The old school regarded all those matters which were altered by the disease, those that manifested themselves in congestions, as well as those abnormal matters that were excreted, as the excitors of disease, or at least, on account of their supposed reacting power, as the maintainers of disease, and this latter notion prevails to this day. Hence they dreamed of effecting causal cures, by endeavouring to remove these imaginary and presumed material causes of the disease. Hence their assiduous evacuation of the bile by vomiting, in bilious fevers; their emetics in cases of so-called disordered stomach;. their diligence in purging away the mucus, 1 The estimable Dr. Rau (loc. cit. p. 176), at a time when not perfectly conversant with homceopathy, but firmly convinced of the dynamic cause of these fevers, cured them without employing any evacuating remedy, by means of one or two small doses of homceopathic remedies, two very remarkable cases of which he relates in his book. 2 In a case of sudden derangement of the stomach, with constant INTRODUCTION. 9 the lumbrici and the ascarides where there are paledisgusting eructations with the taste of the undigested food, generally accompanied by depression of spirits, cold hands and feet, &c., the ordinary physician has hitherto been in the habit of attacking the degenerated contents of the stomach: a powerful emetic should clean it out completely. This object was generally attained by tartar emetic, with or without ipecacuanha. Does the patient, however, immediately after this become well, brisk and cheerful? Oh no! Such a derangement of the stomach is usually of dynamic origin, caused by mental disturbance (grief, terror, anger), a chill, exertion of the mind or body immediately after eating, often after even a moderate meal. Those two remedies are not suitable for removing this dynamic derangement, and just as little is the revolutionary vomiting they produce. Moreover, tartar emetic and ipecacuanha, from their other peculiar pathogenetic powers, will prove of further injury to the patient's health, and derange the biliary secretion; so that if the patient be not very robust, he must feel ill for several days from the effects of this causal treatment, notwithstanding all this violent expulsion of the whole contents of the stomach. If the patient, however, in place of taking such violent and always hurtful evacuant drugs, smell only a single time at a globule the size of a mustard seed, moistened with a high dilution of pulsatilla juice, whereby the derangement of his health in general, and of his stomach in particular, will certainly be removed, in two hours he is quite well; and if the eructation recur once more, it consists of tasteless and inodorous air; the contents of the stomach cease to be vitiated, and at the next meal he has regained his full usual appetite; he is quite well and brisk. This is true causal medication; the former is only an imaginary one and an injurious infliction on the patient. Even a stomach overloaded with indigestible food, never requires a medicinal emetic. In such a case nature is competent to rid herself of the excess in the best way through the cosophagus, by means of 10 INTRODUCTION. ness of the countenance, ravenous appetite, belly-ache, nausea and spontaneous vomiting, assisted, it may be, by mechanical irritation of the palate and fauces, and by this means the accessory medicinal effects of the emetic drugs are avoided; a small quantity of coffee expedites the passage downwards of what remains in the stomach. But if, after excessive overloading of the stomach, the irritability of the stomach is not sufficient to promote spontaneous vomiting, or is lost altogether, so that the tendency thereto is extinguished, while there are at the same time great pains in the epigastrium, in such a paralysed state of the stomach, an emetic medicine would only have the effect of producing a dangerous or fatal inflammation of the intestines; whereas a small quantity of strong infusion of coffee, frequently administered, would dynamically exalt the sunken irritability of the stomach, and put it in a condition to expel its contents, be they ever so great, either upwards or downwards. So here also the pretended causal treatment is out of place. Even the acrid gastric acidity, to eructations of which patients with chronic diseases are not unfrequently subject, may be to-day violently evacuated by means of an emetic, with great suffering, and yet all in vain, for to-morrow or the day following it is replaced by similar acrid gastric acidity, and then usually in larger quantities; whereas it goes away by itself when its dynamic origin is removed by a very small dose of a high dilution of sualphuaiccid, or still better, if it is of frequent recurrence, by the employment of minutest doses of awipsoric remedies, corresponding by similarity to the rest of the symptoms also. And of a similar character are many of the pretended causal cures of the old school physicians, whose main effort it is, by means of tedious operations, troublesome to themselves, and injurious to their patients, to clear away the material product of the dynamic derangement, without perceiving the dynamic source of the affection, and annihilating it and its products hom eopathically, thereby effecting a rational cure. INTRODUCTION. 11 and enlarged abdomen in children;' their venesections in cases of heemorrhage;2 and more especially all their varieties of blood-lettings,3 their main remedy in inflammations, which they now, following the precepts of a well known blood-thirsty Parisian physician 1 Conditions dependent solely on a psoric taint, and easily curable by mild (dynamic) antipsoric remedies without emetics or purgatives. 2 Notwithstanding that almost all morbid hemorrhages depend on a dynamic derangement of the vital force, yet the old school physicians consider its cause to be excess of blood, and cannot refrain from drawing off the supposed superabundance of this vital fluid; the palpable evil consequences of which procedure, however, such as prostration of the strength, and the tendency, or actual transition, to the typhoid state, they ascribe to the malignancy of the disease, which they are then often unable to overcome-in fine, they imagine, even when the patient does not recover, that their treatment has been in conformity with their axiom, causam tolle, and that, according to their mode of speaking, they have done everything in their power for the patient, let the result be what it may. 3 Although there probably never was a drop of blood too much in the living human body, yet the old school practitioners consider an imaginary excess of blood as the main material cause of all hcemorrhages and inflammations, which they should remove and drain off by venesections, cupping, and leeches. This they hold to be a rational mode of treatment, causal medication. In general inflammatory fevers, in acute pleurisy, they even regard the coagulable lymph in the blood-the buffy coat, as it is termed-as the materia peccans, which they endeavour to get rid of, if possible, by repeated venesections, notwithstanding that this coat often becomes more consistent and thicker at every repetition of the bloodletting. They thus often bleed the patient nearly to death, when the inflammatory fever will not subside, in order to remove this buffy coat, or the imaginary plethora, without suspecting that the inflammatory blood is only the 12 INTRODUCTION. (as a flock of sheep follow the bell-wether even into the butcher's slaughter house,) imagine to encounter in every morbidly affected part of the body, and feel product of the acute fever, of the morbid, immaterial (dynamic) inflammatory irritation, and that the latter is the sole cause of the great disturbance in the vascular system, and may be removed by the smallest dose of a homogeneous (homceopathic) medicine, as for instance by a small globule of the decillionth dilution of aconite juice, with abstinence from vegetable acids, so that the most violent pleuritic fever, with all its alarming concomitants, is changed into health and cured, without the least abstraction of blood and without any antiphlogistic remedy, in a few-at the most in twenty-four hours; (a small quantity of blood drawn from a vein by way of experiment then shews no traces of buffy coat;) whereas another patient similarly affected, and treated on the rational principles of the old school, if, after repeated bleedings, with great difficulty and unspeakable sufferings he escape for the nonce with life, he often has still many months to drag through, before he can support his emaciated body on his legs, if in the mean time, (as often happens from such maltreatment,) he be not carried off by typhus fever, leucophlegmasia, or pulmonary phthisis. Any one who has felt the tranquil pulse of a man an hour before the occurrence of the shivering that always precedes an attack of acute pleurisy, will not be able to restrain his amazement if told two hours later, after the hot stage has commenced, that the enormous plethora present urgently requires repeated venesections, and will naturally inquire, by what magic power could the pounds of blood that must now be drawn off, have been conjured into the bloodvessels of this man within these two hours, which but two hours previously he had felt beating in such a tranquil manner? Not a single ounce more of blood can now be circulating in those vessels than existed when he was in good health two hours ago! Accordingly the allopathic physician with his venesections draws INTRODUCTION. 13 themselves bound to remove by the application of often a fatal number of leeches. They imagine that by so doing they obey the causal indication, and treat disease in a rational manner. The adherents of the old school moreover, believe, that by putting a from the patient labouring under acute fever no oppressive superabundance of blood, as that cannot possibly be present; he only robs him of what is indispensable to life and recovery, the normal quantity of blood and consequently of strength-a great loss which no physician's power can replace!-and yet he vainly imagines that he has conducted the treatment in conformity to his (misunderstood) axiom, ccausam tolle, whereas it is impossible that the causa morbi in this case can be an excess of blood, which is not present; but the sole true causa morbi was a morbid, dynamical, inflammatory irritation of the circulating system, as is proved by the rapid and permanent cure of this and every similar case of general inflammatory fever by one or two inconceivably minute doses of aconite juice, which removes such an irritation homceopathically. The old school errs equally in the treatment of local inflammations with its topical bloodlettings, more especially with the quantities of leeches which are now applied according to the maniacal principles of Broussais. The palliative amelioration that at first ensues from the treatment is far from being crowned by a rapid and perfect cure; on the contrary, the weak and crazy state of the parts thus treated (frequently also of the whole body), which always remains, sufficiently shews the error that is committed, in attributing the local inflammation to a local plethora, and the sad consequences of such abstractions of blood; whereas this purely dynamic, though apparently local, inflammatory irritation, can be rapidly and permanently destroyed, by an equally small dose of aconite, or, according to circumstances, of belladonna, and the whole disease removed and cured, without such unjustifiable shedding of blood. 14 INTRODUCTION. ligature on polypi, by cutting out, or exciting suppuration by means of local irritants in, indolent glandular swellings, by dissecting out encysted tumours (steatoma and meliceria), by their operations for aneurysm, and lacrymal and anal fistula, by removing with the knife scirrhous tumours of the breast, by amputating a limb affected with necrosis, &c., they cure the patient radically, and that their treatment is directed against the cause of the disease; and they also think, when they employ their repellent remedies, dry up old running ulcers in the legs with astringent applications of lead, copper, or oxyde of zinc, (aided always, by the simultaneous administration of purgatives, which merely debilitate, but have no effect on the primary dyscrasia,) cauterize chancres, destroy condylomata locally, drive off itch from the skin with sulphur, lead, mercurial or oxyde of zinc ointment, suppress ophthalmime with solutions of lead or zinc, and drive away dragging pains from the limbs by means of opodeldoc, hartshorn liniment, or fumigations with cinnabar or amber; in every case they think they have removed the affection, conquered the disease, and conducted a rational treatment directed towards the cause. But what is the result? the new forms of disease that sooner or later, but inevitably appear, caused by this mode of treatment (but which they pretend are entirely new diseases,) zvhich are always worse than the original affections, sufficiently prove the error of their notions, and might and should open their eyes to the INTRODUCTION. 15 deeper seated, immaterial nature of the disease, and its dynamic (spiritual) origin, which can only be removed by dynamic means. A favourite idea of the ordinary school of medicine, until recent (would that I could not say the most recent) times, was that of morbific matters (and acridities), excessively subtile though they might be thought to be, in diseases, which must be expelled from the blood-vessels and lymphatics, through the exhalents, skin, urinary apparatus, or salivary glands, through the tracheal and bronchial glands in the form of expectoration, from the stomach and bowels by vomiting and purging, in order that the body might be freed from the material cause that produced the disease, and a radical causal cure be thereby effected. By cutting holes in the diseased body, which were for years converted into chronic ulcers by the introduction of foreign substances (issues, setons), they sought to draw off the materia pjeccans from the (always only dynamically) diseased body, just as one lets a dirty fluid run out of a barrel through the tap-hole. By means also of perpetual blisters and the application of mezereum, they thought to draw away the bad humours, and to cleanse the diseased body from all morbific matters-but they only weakened it, so as generally to render it incurable, by all these senseless unnatural processes. I admit that it was more convenient for the weak 16 INTRODUCTION. ness of humanity to assume, that in the diseases they were called on to cure, there existed some morbific material of which the mind might form a conception (more particularly as the patients readily lent themselves to such a notion), because in that case, the practitioner had nothing further to care about, than to procure a good supply of remedies, capable of purifying the blood and humours, of exciting diuresis and diaphoresis, of promoting expectoration, and of scouring out the stomach and bowels. Hence in all the works on Materia Medica, from Dioscorides down to the latest books on this subject, there is almost nothing said about the special peculiar action of individual medicines; but, besides an account of their supposed utility in various nosological names of diseases, it is merely stated, whether they promote the secretion of urine, perspiration, expectoration, or menstruation, and more particularly whether they produce evacuation of the stomach and bowels upwards or downwards; because all the aspirations and efforts of the practitioner have ever been chiefly directed to cause the expulsion of a material morbific matter, and of sundry (fictitious) acridities, on which it was imagined diseases depended. These were, however, all idle dreams, unfounded assumptions and hypotheses, cunningly devised for the convenience of therapeutics, as it was expected the easiest way of performing a cure would be to remove the material morbific matters (si modo essent!). But the essential nature of diseases and their cure INTRODUCTION. 17 will not adapt themselves to such fantasies, nor to the convenience of medical men; to humour such stupid, baseless hypotheses, diseases will not cease to be (spiritual) dynamic derangements of our spiritual vital principle in sensations and functions, that is, immaterial derangements of the state of health. The causes of our maladies cannot be material, since the least foreign material substance,1 however mild it may appear to us, is suddenly repelled, like a poison, by the vital force, or when this does not happen, death is the consequence. If even the minutest splinter penetrates a sensitive part of our organism, the vital principle every where present in our body rests not before it is removed by pain, fever, suppuration, or gangrene. And can it be supposed that in a case of cutaneous disease of twenty years' standing, for instance, this indefatigably active vital principle will quietly endure the presence of such an injurious foreign substance, as must be a material exanthematic principle, an herpetic, a scrofulous, a gouty acridity, &c., in the fluids of the body Did any nosologist ever see with corporeal eyes such a morbific matter, to warrant him in speaking so confidently about it, and 1 Life was endangered by injecting a little pure water into a vein. (Vide Mullen, quoted by Birch in the History of the Royal Society.) Atmospheric air injected into the bloodvessels caused death. (Vide J. H. Voigt, Magazin fiir den neuesten Zustand der Naturkunde, I. iii. p. 25.) Even the mildest fluids introduced into the veins endangered life. (Vide Autenrieth, Physiologie, II. ~ 784.) 18 INTRODUCTION. in constructing a system of medical treatment upon it? Has any one ever succeeded in displaying to view the matter of gout or the poison of scrofula? Even when the application of a material substance to the skin, or to a wound, has propagated diseases by inoculation, who can prove, what is so often maintained in works on pathology, that some material portion of this substance has penetrated into our fluids or been absorbed '. The most careful and prompt washing of the genitals does not protect the system from inoculation with the venereal chancrous disease. The slightest breath of air wafted from the body of a person affected with small-pox, suffices to produce this horrible disease in a healthy child. What ponderable quantity of material substance could have been absorbed into the fluids, in order to develope, in the first of these instances, a tedious dyscrasia (syphilis), which when uncured is only extinguished with the remotest period of life, with death; in the last, a disease (small-pox) accompanied by almost general suppuration,2 and often rapidly fatal? In these S A girl in Glasgow, 8 years of age, having been bit by a mad dog, the surgeon immediately cut the piece clean out, and yet thirtysix days afterwards she was seized with hydrophobia, which killed her in two days. (Med. Comment. of Edinb., Dec. 2, vol. ii. 1793.) 2 In order to account for the large quantity of putrid excrementitious matter and fcetid discharge often met with in diseases, and to be able to represent them as the material substance that excites and keeps up disease-although, when infection occurs, nothing perceptible in the way of miasm, nothing material, could have penetrated INTRODUCTION. 19 and all similar cases is it possible to entertain the idea of a material morbific matter being introduced into the blood? A letter written in the sick room at a great distance, has often communicated the same contagious disease to the person who read it. In this instance, can the notion of a material morbific matter having penetrated into the fluids be admitted? But why should I give such proofs as these? How often has it happened that an irritating word has brought on a dangerous bilious fever; a superstitious prediction of death caused the fatal catastrophe at the very time announced; melancholy or excessively joyful news occasioned sudden death? In these cases, where is the material morbific agent, that should have entered into the body-recourse was had to the hypothesis, that the matter of infection, be it ever so minute, acts in the body like a ferment, bringing the fluids into a like state of corruption, and thus changing them into a similar morbific ferment, which constantly increases with the disease and keeps it up. But by what all-potent and all-wise purifying draughts will you purge and cleanse the human fluids from this ever reproductive ferment, from this mass of imaginary morbific matter, and that so perfectly, that there shall not remain a particle of such a morbific ferment, which, according to this hypothesis, must ever again, as at first, transform and corrupt the fluids to new morbific matter? It would evidently be impossible to cure these diseases, in the way you propose!-See how all hypotheses, be they ever so ingeniously framed, lead to the most palpable contradictions when they are not founded on truth!-The most deeply rooted syphilis may be cured, after the removal of the psora with which it is often complicated, by one or two small doses of the decillionth dilution of mercury, whereby the general syphilitic taint of the fluids is forever (dynamically) annihilated and removed. c2 20 INTRODUCTION. in substance into the body, there to excite and keep up the disease, and without the material expulsion and eduction of which, a radical cure were impossible? The champions of this clumsy doctrine of morbific matters, ought to be ashamed that they have so inconsiderately overlooked and failed to appreciate the spiritual nature of life, and the spiritual dynamic power of the exciting causes of diseases, and that they have thereby degraded themselves into very scavengerdoctors, who, in their efforts to expel from the diseased body morbific matters that never existed, in place of curing, destroy life. Are, then, the excretions which occur in diseases and which are often so disgusting, the actual matter that excites and keeps them up?1 Are they not rather, always excretory products of the disease itself, that is, of the purely dynamic derangement and disturbance of the life? With such false and material views concerning the origin and essential nature of diseases, it was certainly not to be wondered at, that in all ages, the main endeavour of the most obscure, as well as of the most distinguished practitioners, and even of the inventors of the sublimest medical systems, was always only to separate and expel an imaginary morbific matter, I Were this the case, the most inveterate coryza should be certainly and rapidly cured by merely blowing and wiping the nose carefullly. INTRODUCTION. 21 and the indication most frequently established, was to break up and put in motion this morbific matter, to effect its expulsion by salivation, expectoration, diaphoresis and diuresis; to purify the blood from (acridities and impurities) morbific matters, which never existed, by means of the intelligence of sundry obedient decoctions of roots and plants; to draw off mechanically the imaginary matter of disease by setons, by issues, by portions of the skin kept open and discharging by means of perpetual blisters or mezereum bark, but chiefly to expel and purge away the materia peccans, or the injurious matters as they were termed, through the intestines, by means of laxative and purgative medicines, which in order to give them a more profound meaning and a more prepossessing appearance were fondly denominated dissolvents and mild aperients-all, so many arrangements for the expulsion of inimical morbific matters, which never could be, and never were instrumental in the production and maintenance of the diseases of the human organism, animated as it is by a spiritual principle-of diseases, which never were anything else than spiritual dynamic derangements of the life in sensations and functions. Let it be granted now, what cannot be doubted, that no diseases-if they do not result from the introduction of perfectly indigestible or otherwise injurious substances into the stomach, or into other orifices or cavities of the body, or from foreign bodies penetrating the skin, &c.-that no disease, in a word, is caused by 22 INTRODUCTION. any material substance, but that every one is only and always a peculiar, virtual, dynamic derangement of the health; how injudicious, in that case, must not a method of treatment directed towards the expulsion' 1 There is a semblance of necessity in the expulsion by purgatives of worms, in so-called vermicular diseases. But even this appearance is false. A few lumbrici may be found in some children; in many there exist ascarides. But the presence of these is always dependent on a general taint of the constitution (the psoric), joined to an unhealthy mode of living. Let the latter be improved, and the former cured homceopathically, which is most easily effected at this age, and none of the worms remain, and children cured in this manner are never troubled with them more; whereas after mere purgatives, even when combined with cina seeds, they soon reappear in quantities. "aBut the tape-worm," methinks I hear some one exclaim; " every effort should be made to expel that monster, which was created for the torment of mankind." Yes, sometimes it is expelled; but at the cost of what after sufferings, and with what danger to life! I should not like to have on my conscience the deaths of so many hundreds of human beings as have fallen sacrifices to the horribly violent purgatives directed against the tape-worm, or the many years of indisposition of those who have escaped being purged to death. And how often does it happen that after all this health and life destroying purgative treatment, continued for several years, the animal is not expelled, or if so, that it is again produced! What if there is not the slightest necessity for all these violent, cruel, and dangerous efforts to expel and kill the worm? The various species of tape-worm are only found along with the psoric taint, and always disappear when that is cured. But even before the cure is accomplished, they live-the patient enjoying tolerable health the while-not exactly in the intestines, but in the INTRODUCTION. 23 of that imaginary material substance, appear to every rational man, since no good, but only monstrous harm, can result from its employment in the principal diseases of mankind, namely, those of a chronic character! In short, those degenerated substances and impurities that appear in diseases are, undeniably, nothing more than products of the disease of the abnormally deranged organism, which are expelled by the latter, often violently enough-often much too residue of the food, the excrement of the bowels, as in their proper element, quite quietly, and without causing the least disturbance, and find in the excrement what suffices for their nourishment; they then do not touch the walls of the intestine, and are perfectly harmless. But if the patient happen to be affected with an acute disease of any kind, then the contents of the bowels become intolerable to the animal; it twists about and irritates the sensitive walls of the intestines, causing a peculiar kind of spasmodic colic, which increases materially the sufferings of the patient. (So also the fcotus in the womb becomes restless, turns about and kicks, only when the mother is ill; but when she is well, it swims quietly in its proper fluid without causing her any suffering.) It is worthy of remark, that the morbid symptoms of patients suffering from tape-worm are generally of such a kind, that they are rapidly relieved (homceopathically) by the smallest dose of tincture of male-fern root; so that the peculiar condition of the patient, which causes this parasitic animal to be restless, is thereby at once removed; the tape-worm then feels at ease, and lives on quietly in the excrement of the bowels, without particularly disturbing the patient or his intestines, until the antipsoric treatment is so far advanced that the worm, after the eradication of the psora, finds the contents of the bowels no longer suitable for its support, and therefore spontaneously disappears forever from the now cured patient, without the least purgative medicine. 24 INTRODUCTION. violently-without requiring the aid of the evacuating art, and fresh products are always developed as long as it labours under that disease. These matters the true physician regards as actual symptoms of the disease, and they aid him to discover the nature of the disease, and to form an accurate portrait of it, so as to enable him to cure it with a similar, medicinal morbific potency. But the more modern adherents of the old school, do not wish it to be supposed, that in their treatment they aim at the expulsion of material morbific substances. They allege that their multifarious evacuant processes are a mode of treatment by derivation, wherein they follow the example of nature's efforts to assist the diseased organism, which resolves fever by perspiration and diuresis, pleurisy by epistaxis, sweat and mucous expectoration - other diseases by vomiting, purging and bleeding from the anus, articular pains by ulcers on the legs, cynanche tonsillaris by salivation, &c., or removes them by metastases and abscesses which it developes in parts at a distance from the seat of the disease.Hence they thought, the best thing to do was to imitate nature, by also going to work in the treatment of most diseases in a circuitous manner, like the diseased vital force when left to itself, and thus in an indirect manner,' by means of stronger heterogeneous J In place of extinguishing the disease rapidly, without exhaustion INTRODUCTION. 25 irritants applied to organs remote from the seat of disease, and totally dissimilar to the affected tissues, they produced evacuations, and generally kept them up, in order to lead, as it were, the disease thither. This derivation, as it is called, was, and continues to be, one of the principal modes of treatment of the old school of medicine. In this imitation of the self-aiding power of nature, as some call it, they endeavoured to excite, by force, new symptoms in the tissues that are least diseased and best able to bear the medicinal disease, which should lead away1 the primary disease under the semblance of crises and under the form of excretions, in order to admit of a gradual lysis by the curative powers of nature.2 of the strength and without going about the bush, with homogeneous, dynamic medicinal powers, brought to act directly on the exact diseased spot of the organism, as homceopathy does. SJust as if anything immaterial could be led away! So that here too was the notion of a material and a morbific matter, excessively subtile though it might be supposed to be! 2 It is only the slighter acute diseases that are wont, when the natural period of their course has expired, to terminate quietly in resolution, as it is called, with or without the employment of not very powerful allopathic remedies; the vital force having regained its powers, then gradually substitutes the normal condition for the derangement of the health that has now ceased to exist. But in severe acute and in chronic diseases, which constitute by.far the greater portion of all human ailments, crude nature and the old school are equally powerless; in these, neither the vital force, with its self-aiding faculty, nor allopathy in imitation of it, can effect a 26 INTRODUCTION. This they accomplished by means of diaphoretic and diuretic remedies, blood-lettings, setons and issues, but chiefly by irritant drugs to cause evacuation of the alimentary canal, sometimes upwards by means of emetics, sometimes (and this was the favourite plan) downwards by means of purgatives, which were termed aperient and dissolvent' remedies. To assist this derivative method they employed the allied system of antagonistic irritant agents; woollen garments to the bare skin, foot-baths, nauseants, inflicting on the stomach and bowels the pangs of hunger (the hunger-treatment), substances to cause pain, inflammation and suppuration in near or distant parts, as the application of horseradish, mustard plasters, cantharides blisters, mezereum, setons, issues, tartaremetic ointment, moxa, actual cautery, acupuncture, &c.; here also, following the example of crude unassisted nature, which endeavours to free herself from the dynamic disease (in the case of a chronic disease, unavailingly), by exciting pain in distant parts of the body, by metastases and abscesses, by eruptions and suppurating ulcers. It was evidently no rational principle, but merely imitation which promised to simplify practice, that lysis-but at the most a mere temporary truce, during which the enemy fortifies himself, in order, sooner or later, to recommence the attack with still greater violence. 1 An expression which likewise betrays that they imagined and presupposed a morbific substance, which had to be dissolved and expelled. INTRODUCTION. seduced the old school into those unhelpful and injurious indirect modes of treatment, the derivative as well as the antagonistic; that led them to this plan of practice so inefficacious, so debilitating, and so hurtful, of apparently ameliorating diseases for a short time, or removing them in such-a manner that another and a worse disease was roused up to occupy the place of the first. Such a destructive plan cannot certainly be termed curing.. They merely followed the example of crude instinctive nature in her efforts, which are barely1 successful even in the slighter cases* of acute disease; In the ordinary school of medicine, the efforts made by nature for the relief of the organism in diseases where no medicine was given, were regarded as models of treatment worthy of imitation. But t/is was a great error. The pitiable and highly imperfect efforts of the vital force to relieve itself in acute diseases, is a spectacle that should excite our compassion, and command the aid of all the powers of our rational mind, to terminate the self-inflicted torture, by a real cure. If nature is unable to cure homoeopathically a disease already existing in the organism, by the production of another fresh malady similar to it (~ xliii.-xlvi.), which very rarely lies in her power (~ 1.), and if to the organism alone is left the task of overcoming, by its own forces and without external aid, a disease newly contracted (in cases of chronic miasms its power of resistance is quite inefficacious), we then witness nought but painful, often dangerous efforts of nature, to save the individual at whatever cost, which often terminate in extinction of the earthly existence, in death. Little as we mortals know of the operations that take place in the interior economy in health-which must be hidden from us as certainly as they are patent to the eye of the all-seeing Creator and Preserver of his creatures-just as little can we perceive the opera 28 INTRODUCTION. they merely imitated the unreasoning life-preserving power when left to itself in diseases, which, depending entirely upon the organic laws of the body, is only tions that go on in the interior in disturbed conditions of life, in diseases. The internal operations in diseases are manifested only by the visible changes, the sufferings, and the symptoms, whereby alone our life betrays the inward disturbance; so that in no given case can we ascertain which of the morbid symptoms are caused by the primary action of the morbific agent, which by the reaction of the vital force for its own relief. Both are inextricably mixed up together before our eyes, and only present to us an outwardly reflected picture of the entire internal malady, for the fruitless efforts of unassisted vitality to terminate the sufferings, are themselves sufferings of the whole organism. Hence, even in those evacuations termed crises, which nature generally produces at the termination of diseases which have run a rapid course, there is frequently more of suffering than of efficacious relief. TVhat the vital force does in these so-called crises, and howz it does it, remains a mystery to us, like all the internal operations of the organic economy of life. One thing, however, is certain: that in all these efforts more or less of the afected parts are sacrificed and destroyed in order to save the rest. These self-aiding operations of the vital force for the removal of an acute disease, performed only in obedience to the laws of organic life and not guided by the reflexion of an intellect, are at the most but a species of allopathy; in order to relieve the primarily affected organ by a crisis, an increased, often violent, activity is excited in the surrounding organs, to lead away the disease from the former to the latter; then ensue vomitings, purgings, diuresis, diaphoresis, abscesses, &c., in order, by this irritation of distant parts, to effect a sort of derivation from the primarily diseased parts, and the dynamically affected nervous power seems to expend itself in the material product. It is only by the destruction and sacrifice of a portion of the INTRODUCTION. 29 capable of acting in conformity with these laws, and cannot be guided by reason and reflexion-they copied nature, which cannot, like an intelligent surgeon, bring together the gaping lips of a wound and by their union effect a cure; which knows not how to straighten and adjust the broken ends of a bone lying far apart and exuding much (often an excess of) new osseous matter; which cannot put a ligature on a wounded artery, but in its energy causes the patient to bleed to death; which does not understand how to reduce a dislocated shoulder, but by the swelling it occasions round about it soon presents an obstacle to reduction; which, in order to remove a foreign body from the cornea, destroys the whole eye by suppuration; which, with all its efforts, can only liberate a strangulated hernia by gangrene of the bowel and death, and which, by the metastases it produces in dynamic diseases, often renders them much worse than they were originally. But more, this irrational vital force receives into our body, without hesitation, the organism itself that unaided nature can save the patient in acute diseases, and, if death do not ensue, restore, though only slowly and imperfectly, the harmony of life-health. The great weakness of the parts which bad been exposed to the disease, and even of the whole body, the emaciation, &c. remaining after spontaneous cures, are convincing proofs of this. In short, the whole operations of the self-aiding power of the organism when attacked by diseases, displays to the observer nothing but suffering-nothing that he could or ought to imitate if he wishes to cure disease in a truly artistical manner. INTRODUCTION. 31 parts away to those artificially attacked, and thus to effect the cure of the natural disease indirectly, by the production of a disease, much greater in intensity and of quite a diferent kind, in the more healthy parts of the body, consequently by a circuitous way, at the cost of much loss of strength, and usually of great sufferings to the patient.' The disease, if it be acute, and consequently naturally of but short duration, may certainly disappear, even during these heterogeneous attacks on distant and dissimilar parts-but cured it was not. There is nothing that can merit the honourable name of cure in this revolutionary treatment, which has no direct, immediate, pathological relation to the 1 Daily experience shews the sad effects of this manoeuvre in chronic diseases. Anything but a cure is effected. Who would ever call that a victory, if, in place of attacking the enemy in front in a hand to hand fight, and by his destruction terminating at once his hostile assaults, we should, in a cowardly manner and behind his back, lay an embargo on everything, cut off his supplies, burn down every thing for a great way round him? By so doing we would at length deprive him of all courage to resist, but our object is not gained, the enemy is far from being destroyed,-he is still there, and when he can again procure provisions and supplies, he once more rears his head, more exasperated than before-the enemy, I repeat, is far from being destroyed, but the poor innocent country is so completely ruined that it will be long before it can recover itself. In like manner acts allopathy in chronic diseases, when, by its indirect attacks on innocent parts at a distance from the seat of the disease, instead of effecting a cure, it destroys the organism. Such is the result of its hurtful operations! INTRODUCTION. tissues primarily affected. Often, indeed, without these serious attacks on the rest of the organism, would the acute disease have ceased of itself, sooner most likely, with fewer secondary sufferings, and less sacrifice of strength. But neither the mode of operation of the crude natural forces, nor the allopathic copy of that, can for a moment be compared to the dynamic (homceopathic) treatment, which sustains the strength, while it extinguishes the disease in a direct and rapid manner. In far the greatest number of cases of disease however, I mean those of a chronic nature, these stormy, debilitating, indirect modes of treatment of the old school, are scarcely ever of the slightest use. They suspend for a few days only, some troublesome symptom or other, which however returns when the system has become accustomed to the distant irritation, and the disease recurs worse than before, because by the antagonistic pains' and the injudicious evacuations, the vital powers have been depressed. What good results have ever ensued from those foetid artificial ulcers, so much in vogue, called issues? If even during the first week or two, whilst they still cause pain, they appear somewhat to check by antagonism a chronic disease, yet by and bye, when the body has become accustomed to the pain, they have no other effect than that of weakening the patient and giving still greater scope to the chronic affection. Or does any one imagine, in this nineteenth century, that they serve as a tap-hole for the escape of the materia peccans? It almost appears as if this were the case! INTRODUCTION. 33 Whilst most physicians of the old school, imitating in a general manner the efforts of crude, unaided nature for its own relief, carried out in their practice these derivations of merely hypothetical utility, just as they judged expedient (guided in their judgment by some imaginary indication); others, aiming at a higher object, undertook designedly to promote the efforts of the vital force to aid itself by evacuations and antagonistic metastases, as seen in diseases, and by way of lending it a helping hand, to increase still more these derivations and evacuations; and they believed, that by this mode of operation, they were acting duce natura, and might justly claim the title of ministri naturce. As the evacuations effected by nature in chronic diseases are not unfrequently the precursors of alleviations-though only of a temporary character-of troublesome symptoms, violent pains, paralyses, spasms, &c., so the old school imagined these derivations to be the true way of curing diseases, and endeavoured to promote, maintain, and even increase such evacuations. But they did not perceive that all these evacuations and effusions (pseudo-crises) produced by nature when left to herself, were in chronic diseases productive only of palliative, transient alleviation, which, far from contributing to a real cure, on the contrary, rather aggravated the primary, internal malady, by the waste of strength and fluids they occasioned. No one ever saw a chronic patient recover his health permanently by such efforts of crude nature, D 34 INTRODUCTION. nor any chronic disease cured by such evacuations effected by the organism.' On the contrary, in such cases the primary malady is always perceptibly aggravated, after short alleviations, whose duration always becomes shorter and shorter; the bad attacks recur more frequently and more severely in spite of the persistence of the evacuations.-In like manner, on the occurrence of symptoms excited by an internal chronic affection, that threaten to destroy life, when nature, left to its own resources, cannot succour the organism in any other way than by the production of external local symptoms, in order to avert the danger from parts indispensable to life, and direct it to tissues of less vital importance (metastasis); these operations of the energetic but senseless, unreasoning and improvident vital force conduce to anything but genuine relief, or a cure; they only silence for a short time, and in a palliative manner, the dangerous internal affection, at the cost of a large portion of the humours and of the strength, without diminishing the primary disease by a hair's breadth; they can, at the most, only retard the fatal termination which is inevitable without true homceopathic treatment. The allopathy of the old school not only greatly overrated these efforts of the crude automatic power of nature, but completely misinterpreted them, falsely considered them to be truly curative, and endeavoured to increase and promote them, vainly imagining, that 1 Equally inefficacious are those produced artificially. INTRODUCTION. 35 thereby they might perhaps succeed in annihilating and radically curing the whole disease. When, in chronic diseases, the vital force seemed to silence this or that troublesome symptom of the internal affection, by the production, for example, of some humid cutaneous eruption, then the servant of the crude power of nature (minister naturce) applied to the discharging surface a cantharides plaster or an exutory (mezereum), in order, duce natura, to draw still more moisture from the skin, and thus to promote and to assist nature's object-the cure (by the removal of the morbific matter from the body?); but when the effect of the remedy was too violent, the exanthema already of long standing, and the system too irritable, he increased the external affection to a great amount, without the slightest advantage to the original disease, and aggravated the pains, which deprived the patient of sleep and depressed his strength (and sometimes even developed a malignant febrile erysipelas); or if the effect upon the local affection (still recent, perhaps,) was of a milder character, he thereby repelled from its seat, by a species of ill-applied external homceopathy, the local symptom which had been established by nature for the relief of the internal disease, thus renewing the more dangerous internal malady, and by this repulsion of the local symptom, compelling the vital force to effect a transference of a worse form of morbid action to other and more important parts; the patient became affected with dangerous ophthalmia, or deafness, or D2 36 INTRODUCTION. spasms of the stomach, or epileptic convulsions, or attacks of asthma or apoplexy, or mental derangement, &c., in place of the repelled local disease.' When the diseased natural force propelled blood into the veins of the rectum or anus (blind heemorrhoids), the minister nature, under the same delusive idea of assisting the vital force in its curative efforts, applied leeches, often in large numbers, in order to give an outlet to the blood there-with but brief, often scarcely noteworthy, relief, but thereby weakening the body, and occasioning still greater congestions in those parts, without the slightest diminution of the primary disease. In almost all cases, in which the diseased vital force endeavoured to subdue the violence of a dangerous internal malady by evacuating blood, by means of vomiting, coughing, &c., the old school physician, duce natura, made haste to assist these supposed curative efforts of nature, and performed a copious venesection, which was invariably productive of injurious consequences and palpable weakening of the body. In cases of frequently occurring chronic nausea, he produced, with the view of furthering the intentions of nature, copious evacuations of the stomach, by 1 Natural effects of the repulsion of these local symptoms-effects that are often regarded by the allopathic physician as fresh diseases of quite a different kind. INTRODUCTION. 37 means of powerful emetics-never with a good result, often with bad, not unfrequently dangerous, and even fatal consequences. The vital force, in order to relieve the internal malady, sometimes produces indolent enlargements of the external glands, and he thinks to forward the intentions of nature, in his assumed character of her servant, if, by the use of all sorts of heating embrocations and plasters, he causes them to inflame, so that, when the abscess is ripe, he may incise it and let out the bad morbific matter (?). Experience has shewn, hundreds of times, what lasting evil almost invariably results from such a plan. And having often noticed slight amelioration of the severe symptoms of chronic diseases, to result from spontaneous night sweats, or frequent liquid stools, he imagines himself bound to obey these hints of nature (duce natura), and to promote them, by instituting and maintaining a complete course of sweating treatment, or by the employment of so-called gentle laxatives for years, in order to promote and increase these efforts of nature (of the vital force of the senseless organism), which he thinks tend to the cure of the whole chronic affection, and thus to emancipate the patient more speedily and certainly from his disease (the matter of his disease?). But he thereby always produces quite the contrary result: aggravation of the primary disease. In conformity with this preconceived but unfounded INTRODUCTION. 89 disease itself, the phenomena of the whole disease, for the totality of which, properly speaking, the only efficacious remedy, and the one, moreover, that will act in the most direct manner, is a homccopathic medicine, chosen on account of its similarity of action. As everything that crude nature does to relieve itself in diseases, in those of an acute, but especially those of a chronic kind, is extremely imperfect and even actual disease, it may easily be conceived, that the promotion by artificial means of this imperfection and disease, must do still more harm; at least, it cannot improve the efforts of nature for its own relief, even in acute diseases, because medical art is not in a condition to follow the hidden paths by which the vital force effects its crises, but attempts to produce them from without, by violent means, which are still less beneficial than what the instinctive vital force left to its own resources does, but on the other hand are more disturbing and debilitating. For even the imperfect amelioration resulting from the natural derivations and crises cannot be obtained in a similar manner by allopathy; with all its endeavours it cannot procure anything like even that pitiful relief the vital force left to itself is able to afford. It has been attempted to produce, by means of scarifying instruments, a bleeding at the nose, in imitation of that sometimes occurring naturally, in order to mitigate, for example, the attacks of a chronic headache. By this means a large quantity of blood could be made to flow from the nostrils and weaken 40 INTRODUCTION. the patient, but the relief afforded was either nil, or much less than the instinctive vital force would procure at another time, when, of its own accord, it would let but a few drops flow. A so-called critical perspiration or diarrhoea, produced by the ever active vital' force after a sudden indisposition, from anger, fright, a sprain, or a chill, will be much more successful, at least for the time, in relieving the acute disease, than all the sudorific or purgative drugs in the pharmacopoeia, which only make the patient worse, as daily experience shews. But the vital force, which of itself can only act according to the physical constitution of our organism, and is not guided by reason, knowledge and reflexion, was not given to man to be regarded as the best possible curative agent to restore those lamentable deviations from health to the normal condition, and still less that physicians should slavishly imitate its imperfect morbid efforts (to free itself from disease), and that with operations incontestably more injurious and severe than its own, and thereby conveniently spare themselves the expenditure of reasoning, reflexion and judgment requisite for the discovery and for the practice of the noblest of human arts-the true art of healing-while they allege their bad copy of the spontaneous efforts of doubtful utility made by the crude natural force for its relief, to be the healing art, the rational healing art! What sensible man would imitate the efforts of the organism for its own preservation? These efforts are INTRODUCTION. 41 in reality the disease itself, and the morbidly affected vital force is the producer of the visible disease! It must, therefore, necessarily follow, that all artificial imitation, and likewise the suppression of these efforts, must either increase the disease, or render it dangerous by their suppression, and both of these allopathy does; these are its pernicious operations, which it alleges to be the healing art, the rational healing art! No! that exquisite power innate in the human being, designed to direct with consummate skill the operations of life during health, equally present in all parts of the organism, in the fibres of sensibility, as well as in those of irritability, the unwearied spring of all the normal natural functions of the body, was not created for the purpose of affording itself aid in diseases, not for the purpose of exercising a healing art worthy of imitation-No! true medicine is that reflective art, the province of the higher powers of human intellect, of unfettered judgment, and of reason selecting and determining according to the strict rules of logical induction, whereby the physician is enabled to effect a change in the instinctive, irrational and senseless, but energetic, automatic vital force, when it has been diverted by disease into abnormal action, and by means of a similar affection developed by a homwoopathically chosen remedy, to excite in it a medicinal disease somewhat greater in degree, so that the natural morbid affection can no longer act upon the vital force, which thus, freed fj'om the natural disease, has now only the similar, somewhat stronger, medicinal, morbid affection to contend 42 INTRODUCTION. with, against which it now directs its whole energy, and which it soon overpowers, whereby the vital force is liberated, and enabled to return to the normal standard of health, and to its proper function, "the mainaitinance of the life and health of the organism," without having suffered, during this change, any painful or debilitating attacks. Homoeopathy teaches us how to ef]ect this. Under the methods of treatment of the old school I have just detailed, no small number of patients certainly got rid of their diseases, but not of those of a chronic (non-venereal) character; only such as were acute and unattended with danger; and even these they were only freed from, by such circuitous and tedious ways, and often so incompletely, that the results of the treatment could never be termed cures effected by a gentle art. Acute diseases of a not very dangerous kind were, by venesections, or suppression of one of the chief symptoms through the instrumentality of an enantiopathic palliative remedy (contraria contrariis) kept under, or by means of counter-irritant and derivative (antagonistic and revulsive) remedies, applied to other than the diseased spots, suspended, until the natural time for the duration of the short malady had expired. These methods were, consequently, indirect, and attended with loss of strength and humours, so much so, that in patients so treated, the greatest and most important measures for the complete removal of the disease and for the restoration of the lost strength and humours, remained INTRODUCTION. to be performed by nature herself-by the life-preserving power, which, besides the removal of the natural acute disease, had also to combat the effects of improper treatment, and thus it was able, in cases unattended by danger, gradually to restore the normal relation of the functions, by means of its own energy, but often in a tedious, imperfect and painful manner. It remains a very doubtful question, whether the natural process of recovery in acute diseases is at all shortened or facilitated by this interference of the old school, as the latter cannot act otherwise than the vital force, namely, indirectly; but its derivative and antagonistic treatment is much more aggressive and much more debilitating. The old school has yet another method of treatment, which is termed the stimulating and strengthening system,' (by excitantia, nervina, tonica, confortantia, roborantia). It is astonishing how it can boast of this method. Has it ever succeeded in removing, as it has so often attempted to do, the physical weakness engendered and kept up or increased by a chronic disease, with its prescriptions of etherial Rhine-wine, or fiery Tokay? The forces gradually sank under this treatment, and all the lower, the greater the quantity of wine the patient was counselled to drink, because the 1 It is, properly speaking, enantiopathic, and I shall again refer to it in the text of the Organon (~ lix.). 44 INTRODUCTION. source of the weakness, the chronic disease, was not cured by it, because artificial stimulation is followed by relaxation, in the reaction of the vital force. Or did its cinchona bark, or its amara, so misunderstood, so multifarious in their modes of action, and productive of quite a different kind of injury, give strength in these frequently occurring cases? Did not these vegetable substances, said to be tonic and strengthening under all circumstances, as well as the preparations of steel, often add to the old disease new sufferings, by virtue of their peculiar pathogenetic effects, without relieving the weakness, which depended on an unknown disease of long standing? Has any one ever succeeded in diminishing in the very least, the duration of the incipient paralysis of an arm or a leg arising from a chronic disease, without curing the disease itself, by means of the so-called unguenta nervina, or any other spirituous or balsamic embrocations? Or have electric or galvanic shocks ever been attended with any other result in such cases, than a gradually increasing, and finally absolute, paralysis, and extinction of all muscular and nervous irritability, in such limbs?' Those affected with hardness of hearing were relieved by moderate shocks from the voltaic pile of the apothecary of Jever, only for a few hours-these moderate shocks soon lost their power. In order to produce the same result he had to make them stronger; until these stronger shocks had no effect; the very strongest would then at first excite the patients' hearing for a short time, but at length left them quite deaf. INTRODUCTION. 45 Did not the renowned excitantia and aphrodisiaca, ambergris, scincus, cantharides tincture, truffles, cardamoms,- cinnamon and vanilla, invariably bring about complete impotence in the gradually declining sexual power, (which always depended on an unobserved chronic miasm)? How can credit be taken for the production of a stimulation and invigoration of but a few hours' duration, when the result that must follow, and which is permanent-according to the laws of all palliative action-is a directly opposite state, the rendering of the disease incurable? The little good that the excitantia and roborantia did in assisting in the recovery from acute diseases (treated according to the old method), was a thousand times outweighed by their ill effects in chronic maladies. When physicians of the old school know not what they ought to do in a chronic disease, they blindly attack it with their so-called alterative remedies (alterantia), and among these the frightful mercurialia (calomel, corrosive sublimate, and mercurial ointment) occupy the foremost place-which they allow to act in such large quantities, and for so long a time, so destructively on the diseased body (in non-venereal diseases!), that at last the health is completely undermined. They thus certainly produce great alterations, but invariably such as are not beneficial, and 46 INTRODUCTION. they always utterly ruin the health by their improper administration of this excessively injurious metal. When the old school practitioners prescribe, in large doses, cinchona bark (which, as a homoeopathic febrifuge, is only specific in true marsh ague, uncomplicated with psora), for all epidemic intermittent fevers, which are often distributed over large tracts of country, they palpably manifest their imprudence, for those diseases assume a different character almost every year, and hence demand for their cure, almost always, a different homceopathic remedy, by means of one, or a few very small doses of which, they may always be radically cured in a few days. Now, because these epidemic fevers have periodical attacks (typus) and the adherents of the old school see nothing in all intermittent fevers but their typus [periodicity], and neither know, nor care to know, any other febrifuge but cinchona, these routine practitioners imagine, if they can but suppress the typus of the epidemic intermittent fever, with enormous doses of cinchona and its costly alcaloid, quinine, (an event which the unintelligent, but in this instance more sensible, vital force endeavours to prevent often for months), that they have cured this epidemic ague. But the deluded patient, after such a suppression of the periodicity (typus) of his fever, invariably becomes worse than he was during the fever itself: with sallow complexion, dyspnoea, constriction in the hypochondria, disordered bowels, unhealthy appetite, INTRODUCTION, 47 broken sleep, feeble and desponding, often with great swelling of the legs, of the abdomen, and even of the face and hands, he creeps out of the hospital, dismissed as cured, and long years of homoeopathic treatment are not unfrequently required, merely to rescue from death, not to say to cure, and restore to health, such a profoundly injured (cured ), artificially cachectic patient. The old school is happy when it can convert the dull stupor that occurs in typhus fevers, by means of valerian, which in this case acts antipathically, into a kind of liveliness of a few hours' duration; but as this does not continue, and to force a repetition of the animation, ever increasing doses of valerian are requisite, it is not long before the largest doses cease to have the desired effect. But as this palliative is only stimulant in its primary action, in its secondary action the vital force is paralysed, and such a patient is certain of a speedy death from this rational treatment of the old school; none can escape. And yet the adherents of this routine art could not perceive that by these proceedings they most certainly killed their patients; they ascribed the death to the malignancy of the disease. A palliative of a still more horrible character for chronic patients, is the digitalis purpurea, with which the old school practitioners imagine they do such excellent service, when they endeavour, by means of it, to bring down the quick, irritated pulse (purely symptomatic!) in chronic diseases. True it is, that 48 INTRODUCTION. this monstrous remedy, which is in such cases employed enantiopathically, strikingly diminishes the frequency of the quick, irritated pulse, and greatly reduces the strength of the arterial pulsations, for a few hours, after the first dose; but the pulse soon becomes more rapid than before. In order again to diminish in some degree its frequency, the dose is increased, and it has the effect, but for a still shorter period, until even these and still larger palliative doses cease to reduce the pulse, which at length, in the secondary action of the foxglove which can no longer be restrained, becomes much more rapid than it was before the use of the drug,-it then becomes uncountable; sleep, appetite, and all strength are lost -death is imminent; and not one of the patients so treated escapes alive, unless to be a prey to incurable insanity!1 Such was the treatment pursued by the allopathist. The patients, therefore, were obliged to yield to the S sad necessity, because they could obtain no better aid from other allopathists, who had gained their knowledge from the same deceitful books. 1 And yet Hufeland, the chief of this old school (v. Homoopathie, p. 22), extols with much satisfaction the employment of digitalis in such cases, in these words: "None will deny" (experience invariably does so!) " that too great rapidity of the circulation can be removed (?) by digitalis." Permanently removed? and by a heroic enantiopathic remedy? Poor Hufeland! INTRODUCTION. 49 As the fundamental cause of chronic (non-venereal) diseases, together with the remedies for them, remained unknown to these practitioners, who vainly boasted of their causal medication, and of their diagnosis being directed to the investigation of the genesis of diseases;' how could they hope to remove the immense numbers of chronic diseases, by their indirect modes of treatment, which were but hurtful imitations of the processes of the irrational vital force for its own relief, that never were intended to be models for practice? The presumed character of the affection, they regarded as the cause of the disease, and hence they directed their pretended causal treatment against spasm, inflammation (plethora), fever, general and partial debility, mucus, putridity, obstructions, &c., which they thought to remove by means of their antispasmodic, antiphlogistic, tonic, stimulant, antiseptic, dissolvent, resolvent, derivative, evacuant, antagonistic remedies (of which they only possessed a superficial knowledge). But from indications of such a vague character, really serviceable medicines could not be discovered, most assuredly not in the materia medica of the 1 Which Hufeland in his pamphlet, Die Homropathie (p. 20), makes a futile attempt to appropriate for his old pseudo-art. For since, as is well known, previous to the appearance of my book (Clhronic Diseases), the 2500-years-old allopathy knew nothing about the source of most chronic diseases (psora), must it not have attributed a false source (genesis) to such maladies? 50 INTRODUCTION. old school, which, as I have elsewhere shewn,' is founded mainly on conjecture and false deductions ab usu in morbis, mixed up with falsehood and fraud. With equal rashness they attacked those still more hypothetical so-called indications-deficiency or excess of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, or hydrogen in the fluids, exaltation or diminution of the irritability, sensibility, and reproduction, derangements of the arterial, venous, and capillary systems, asthenia, &c., without knowing a single remedy for effecting objects so visionary. All this was pure ostentation. It was a mode of treatment-that did no good to the patients. But all semblance of appropriate treatment of diseases was completely lost, by a practice, introduced in the earliest times, and even made into a rule: I mean the mixture, in a prescription, of various medicinal substances, whose real action was, almost without an exception, unknown, and which, without any one exception, invariably differed so much among each other. One medicine (the sphere of whose medicinal effects was unknown) was placed foremost, as the principal remedy (basis), and was designed to subdue, what the physician deemed the chief character of the disease; to this was added some other drug (equally unknown as regards the sphere of its medicinal action), for the removal of some particular accessory symptom, or to strengthen the action of the first (adjuvans); 1 Introduction to the third part of the Pure Materia Medica: "Sources of the common Materia Medica." [Translated in the British Journal of Honmcopathy, vol. iii.] INTRODUCTION. 51 and besides these, yet another, (likewise unknown as to the sphere of its medicinal powers), a pretended corrective remedy (corrigens); these were all mixed together (boiled, infused)-and along with them, some medicinal syrup, or distilled medicinal water, also with different properties, would be included in the formula, and it was supposed, that each of the ingredients of this mixture would perform, in the diseased body, the part allotted to it by the prescriber's imagination, without suffering itself to be disturbed or led astray by the other things mixed up along with it; which, however, could not in reason be expected. One ingredient suspended wholly or partially the action of another, or communicated to it and to the others, a mode of action and operation never anticipated nor calculated on, so that it was impossible the expected effect could be obtained; there frequently occurred a new morbid derangement, which, from the incomprehensible changes imparted to substances by their admixture, was not and could not have been foreseen, which escaped observation amid the tumultuous symptoms of the disease, and which became permanent from a lengthened employment of the prescription-accordingly an artificial disease was added to and complicated the original disease, causing an aggravation of the latter-or if the prescription was not often repeated, but superseded by one or more new prescriptions, composed of other ingredients, given in rapid succession, then the very least that could happen was a farther depression of E 2 52 INTRODUCTION. the strength, for the substances administered in that way neither had, nor could have had, any direct pathological relation to the original malady, but only attacked, in a useless and injurious manner, parts that were least implicated in the disease. The mixture of several medicines, even if the effects of each single medicine on the human body were accurately known (-the prescription writer, however, often knows not the thousandth part of their effects-), the association in one formula, of several such ingredients, I repeat, many of which are themselves of a very compound nature, and the peculiar action of any one of which is as good as unknown, although in reality it always differs from that of the others, and the administration of this incomprehensible mixture to the patient in large and frequently repeated doses, in order therewith to obtain some purposed, certain, curative effect, is a piece of folly evident to every reflecting and unprejudiced person.1 1 The absurdity of medicinal mixtures has been perceived even by adherents of the old school of medicine, although they still continued to follow this slovenly plan in their own practice, contrary to their convictions. Thus Marcus Herz (in Hufeland's Journal, ii. p. 33), reveals the pricks of his conscience in the following words: "When we wish to remove the inflammatory state, we do not employ either nitre or sal-ammoniac or vegetable acids alone, but we usually mix several, and often but too many, so-called antiphlogistics together, or give them in the same case in close succession. If we have to combat putridity, we are not content to look for the attainment of our object from the administration of large doses of one of the known INTRODUCTION. 53 The result naturally belies every expectation that had been formed. There certainly ensue changes and results, but none of an appropriate character, none beneficial-all injurious, destructive! antiseptic medicines, cinchona bark, mineral acids, arnica, serpentaria, &c., alone; we prefer associating several of them together, and count upon their community of action; or from our uncertainty as to whose action is the most suitable for the case in question, we throw together a number of different substances, and almost leave it to chance to effect the end we have in view, by means of one of them. Thus we seldom excite perspiration, purify the blood (?), overcome obstructions (?), promote expectoration, or even evacuate the prime vise, by a single remedy; our prescriptions for these objects are always composite, almost never simple and pure, consequently neither are our observations in reference to the actions of each individual substance contained in them. To be sure, we learnedly institute certain grades of rank among the remedies in our formulas; on the one to which we particularly commission the action, we confer the title of base (basis), the others we call helpers, supporters (adjuvantia), correctives (corrigentia), &c. But this classification is evidently almost entirely arbitrary. The helpers and supporters have just as much part in the whole action as the chief ingredient, although, from want of a standard of measurement, we are unable to determine the degree of their participation in the result. In like manner the influence of the correctives on the powers of the other ingredients cannot be quite indifferent; they must increase or depress them, or give them quite another direction; and hence we must always regard the salutary (?) change which we effect, by means of such a prescription, as the result of all its ingredients collectively, and we can never obtain from its action, a pure observation of the individual efficacy of any single ingredient of which it is composed. In fact, our hnowoledge of what is essential to be knozon respecting all our remedies, as also respecting the perhaps hundredfold relationships among each 54 INTRODUCTION. I should like to see any one who would call the blind inroads of such prescriptions on the diseased human body, a cure! It is only by guiding what still remains of the vital principle in the patient, to the proper performance of its functions, by means of a suitable medicine, that a cure can be expected, but not by enervating the body to death, secundum artem; and yet the old school knows not what else to do with patients suffering from chronic diseases, than to attack the sufferers with drugs that do nothing but torture them, waste their strength and fluids, and shorten their lives! Can it be said to save whilst it destroys? Does it deserve any other name than that of a mischievous [non-healing] art? It acts, lege artis, in the most inappropriate manner, and it does (it would almost seem purposely) iorze, that is to say, the very opposite of what it should do. Can it be commended? Can it be any longer tolerated? In recent times, the old school practitioners have quite surpassed themselves in their cruelty towards their sick fellow creatures, and in the unsuitableness of their operations, as every unprejudiced observer must admit, and as even physicians of their own school have been forced, by the pricks of their conother into which they enter when combined, is far too little to be relied upon, to enable us to tell with certainty, the degree and extent of the action of a substance, seemingly ever so unimportant, when introduced into the human body in combination with other substances." INTRODUCTION. 55 science (like Kriiger Hansen), to confess before the world. It was high time for the wise and benevolent Creator and Preserver of mankind to put a stop to this abomination, to command a cessation of these tortures, and to reveal a healing art the very opposite of this, which should not waste the vital juices and powers by emetics, perennial scourings out of the bowels, warm baths, diaphoretics, or salivation; nor shed the life's blood, nor torment and weaken with painful appliances; nor, in place of curing patients suffering from diseases, render them incurable by the addition of new, chronic, medicinal maladies, by means of the long continued use of wrong, powerful medicines of unknown properties; nor yoke the horse behind the cart, by giving strong palliatives, according to the old favourite axiom, contraria contrariis curentur; nor, in short, in place of lending the patient aid, to guide him in the way to death, as is done by the merciless routine practitioner;--but which, on the contrary, should spare the patient's strength as much as possible, and should, rapidly and mildly, effect an unalloyed and permanent cure, by means of smallest doses of simple medicines well considered, and selected according to their proved effects, by the only therapeutic law conformable to nature: similia similibus curentur. It was high time that He should permit the discovery of Homoeopathy. 56 INTRODUCTION. By observation, reflexion, and experiment, I discovered, that, in opposition to the old allopathic method, the true, the proper, the best mode of treatment, is contained in the maxim: To effect a mild, rapid, certain, and permanent cure, choose, in every case of disease, a medicine which can itself produ&ce:'dn' affection similar (o-orov,r@og) to that sought to be cured! Hitherto no one has ever taught this homceopathic mode of cure, no one has practised it. But if the truth is only to be found in this method, as I can prove it to be, we might expect that, even though it remained unperceived for thousands of years, distinct traces of it would yet be discovered in every age.' And such is the fact. In all ages, the patients who have been really, rapidly, permanently, and evidently cured by medicines, and who did not merely recover by some fortuitous circumstance, or by the acute disease having run its allotted course, or by the powers of the system having, in the course of time, gradually attained the preponderance, under allopathic and antagonistic treatment-for being cured in a direct manner differs vastly from recovering in an indirect manner-such patients have been cured solely, (although without the knowledge of the physi1 For truth is co-eternal with the all-wise, benevolent Deity. It may long escape the observation of man, until the time fore-ordained by Providence arrives, when its rays shall irresistibly break through the clouds of prejudice, and usher in the dawn of a day, which shall shine with a bright and unfading light for the weal of the human race. INTRODUCTION. 57 cian,) by means of a (homoeopathic) medicine, which possessed the power of producing a similar morbid state. Even in cases of real cure by means of mixtures of medicines-which were excessively rare-it will be found, that the remedy whose action predominated, was always of a homceopathic character. But this is observed much more strikingly in cases where physicians sometimes effected a rapid cure with one simple medicinal substance, contrary to the usual custom, that admitted of none but mixtures of medicines in the form of a prescription. There we see, to our astonishment, that this always occurred by means of a medicine that is itself capable of producing an affection similar to the case of disease that was cured, although the physicians themselves knew not what they were doing, and acted in forgetfulness, of the contrary doctrines of their own school. They prescribed a medicine the very reverse of that which they should have employed according to the laws of traditional therapeutics, and it was only in consequence of so doing that the patients were rapidly cured. I shall here relate some examples of these homceopathic cures, which find a dear and precise interpretation in the homoeopathic doctrine now discovered and acknowledged, but which we are by no means to regard as arguments in favour of the latter, because it stands firm without the aid of any such support.1 Sf, in the cases which will be cited here, the doses of medicine 58 INTRODUCTION. The author of the treatise on epidemic diseases (Ai~rsI v) (attributed to Hippocrates1), mentions a case of cholera morbus that resisted every remedy, and which he cured by means of white hellebore alone, which, however, excites cholera of itself, as witnessed by Forest, Ledelius, Reimann, and many others.2 The English sweating sickness which first appeared in the year 1485, and which, more murderous than the plague itself, carried off in the commencement, (as testified by Willis) ninety-nine patients out of a hundred, could not be subdued, until physicians had exceeded those which the safe homceopathic doctrine prescribes, they were, of course very naturally attended with the same degree of danger which usually results from all homoeopathic agents when administered in large doses. However, it often happens, from various causes which cannot at all times be discovered, that even very large doses of homceopathic medicines effect a cure, without causing any notable injury, either from the vegetable substance having lost a part of its strength, or because abundant evacuations ensued which destroyed the greater part of the effects of the remedy; or, finally, because the stomach had received at the same time other substances, which, acting as an antidote, lessened the strength of the dose. SAt the commencement of lib. 5. 2 P. Forestus, xviii. obs. 44.-Ledelius, Misc. nat. cur. dec. iii. ann. i. obs. 65.-Reimann, Bresl. Samml. 1724, p. 535. In this, and in all the examples that follow, I have purposely abstained from reporting either my own observations or those of my pupils, upon the special effects of each individual medicine, but merely those of the physicians of times past. My object for acting in this manner, is to shew that the art of curing homceopathically might have been discovered before my time. INTRODUCTION. 59 learned to administer sudorifics to their patients. After that, as Sennert' observes, few persons died of it. A case of dysentery which had lasted several years, threatening the patient with inevitable death, and for which every other medicine had been tried without success, was, to Fischer's2 (but not my) great surprise, cured in a speedy and permanent manner by a purgative administered by an empiric. Murray, (whom I select from numerous other authorities,) informs us, as does also daily experience, that among the symptoms produced by the use of tobacco, those of vertigo, nausea, and anxiety are the principal. Now Diemerbroeck,3 when attacked with those very symptoms of vertigo, nausea, and anxiety, in the course of his close attendance on the victims of epidemic diseases in Holland, removed them by smoking tobacco. The hurtful effects which some writers (among others Georgi)4 ascribe to the use of the agaricus muscarius, by the inhabitants of Kamtschatka, and which consist of tremors, convulsions, and epilepsy, became a salutary remedy in the hands of C. G. Whistling,5 who used this fungus with success in cases of convulsions accompanied with tremor; likewise in 1 De Febribus, iv. cap. 15. 2 In Hufeland's Journal fiir praktische H-eilkunde, vol. x. iv. p. 127. 3 Treatise on Pest. Amsterdam, 1665, p. 273. 4 Beschreibung aller Nationen des russischen Reichs, pp. 78, 267, 281, 321, 329, 352. 5 Diss de Virt. Agaric. Musc. Jena, 1718, p. 13. 60 INTRODUCTION. those of J. C. Bernhardt,' who used it with success in a species of epilepsy. The remark made by Murray,2 that oil of aniseed allays pains of the stomach and flatulent colic caused by purgatives, ought not to surprise us, knowing that J. P. Albrecht3 has observed pains in the stomach produced by this substance, and P. Forest4 violent colic likewise caused by its administration. If F. Hoffmann praises the efficacy of millefoil in various cases of hemorrhage; if G. E. Stahl, Buchwald and Ldseke have found this plant useful in excessive hcemorrhoidal flux; if Quarin and the editors of the Breslauer Sammlungen speak of the cure it has effected of hcemoptysis; and finally, if Thomasius (according to Haller) has used it successfully in uterine haemorrhage; these cures are evidently owing to the power possessed by the plant, of exciting intestinal lhemorrhage and hwematuria, as observed by G. Hoffmann,5 and more especially of producing epistaxis, as confirmed by Boecler.6 Scovolo,7 among many others, cured a case where the urinary discharge was puriform, by arbutus uva Chym. Vers. und Erfahrungen, Leipsic, 1754, obs. 5, p. 324. Gruner, De Viribus Agar. Musc. Jena, 1778, p. 13. 2 Appar. Medic., 1, p. 429, 430. 3 Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. ii. ann. 8, obs. 169. 4 Observat. et Curationes, lib. 21. 5 De Medicam. Officin. Leyden, 1738. SCynosura Mat. Med. Cont., p. 552. 7In Girardi, de uva ursi. Padua, 1764. INTRODUCTION. 61 ursi; which never could have been performed, if this plant had not the property of exciting heat in the urethra with discharge of mucous urine, as seen by Sauvages.' And though the frequent experience of Storck, Marges, Planchon, du Monceau, F. C. Junker, Schinz, Ehrmann, and others had not already established the fact, that colchicum autumnale cures a species of dropsy, still this power was to have been expected from it, from the peculiar property it possesses of diminishing the urinary secretion, and of exciting at the same time a continual desire to pass water. It likewise causes the flow of a small quantity of urine of a fiery red colour, as witnessed by Storck2 and de Berge3. The cure of an asthma attended with hypochondriasis effected by Goritz' by means of colchicum, and that of an asthma complicated with hydrothorax, performed by St6rck5 with the same substance, were evidently owing to the homccopathic property which it possesses, of exciting asthma and dysmpnoa, as witnessed by de Berge.6 Muralto7 saw what we may witness every day, viz: SNosolog., iii. p. 200. 2 Libellus de Colchico. Vienna, 1763, p. 12. 3 Journal de Medecine, 22. 4 A. E. Biichner, Miscell. Phys. Med. Mathem. Ann. 1728, Jul. pp. 1212, 1213. Erfurt, 1732. 6 Ibid. cas. 11, 13. 6 Ibid. loc. cit. 7 Misc. Nat. Cur. dec. ii. ann. 7, obs. 112. 62 INTRODUCTION. that jalap, besides creating gripes in the belly, also causes great uneasiness and agitation. Every physician acquainted with the facts upon which homceopathy rests, will find it perfectly natural, that the power so justly ascribed to this medicine by G. W. Wedel,' of allaying the gripes which are so frequent in young children, and of procuring them tranquil repose, arises from homceopathic influence. It is also known and has been attested by Murray, Hillary and Spielmann, that senna occasions a kind of colic, and produces, according to C. Hoffmann2 and F. Hoffmann,3 flatulency and turgescence of the blood,4 ordinary causes of insomnolency. It was this inherent homoeopathic property of senna, which enabled Detharding5 to cure with its aid, patients afflicted with violent colic and insomnolency. Storck, who had so intimate a knowledge of medicines, was on the point of discovering that the bad effects of the dictamnus, which he observed sometimes to provoke a mucous discharge from the vagina,6 arose from the very same properties in this root which enabled him to cure a leucorrhoea of long standing. Opiolog., lib. 1, p. 1, cap. 2, p. 38. 2 De Medicin. Officin., lib. 1, cap. 36. 3 Diss de Manna, p. 16. 4 Murray, loc. cit. ii. p. 507. SEphem. Nat. Cur., cent. 10, obs. 76. 6 Lib. de Flamm. Jovis. Vienna, 1769, cap. 2. 9 Ibid. cap. 9. INTRODUCTION. 63 Storck should, moreover, not have been astonished that he was able to cure a general chronic eruption (humid, phagedenic and psoric) with clematis,' having himself ascertained' that this plant has the power of producing a psoric eruption over the whole body. If, as Murray asserts,3 euphrasia cures lippitudo and a certain form of ophthalmia, how could it otherwise produce this effect, but by the faculty it possesses of exciting a kind of inflammation in the eyes, as has been remarked by Lobelius? According to J. H. Lange,5 nutmeg has been found efficacious in hysterical fainting fits. The sole natural cause of this phenomenon is homceopathic, and can be attributed to no other circumstance, but that the nutmeg, when given in strong doses to a person in health, produces, as stated by J. Schmid6 and Cullen,7 suspension of the senses and general insensibility. The old practice of applying rose-water externally in ophthalmic diseases, looks like a tacit avowal, that there exists in the leaves of the rose, some curative power for diseases of the eye. This is founded upon the homoeopathic virtue which the rose possesses, of exciting a species of ophthalmia in persons who are 1 Op. cit., cap. 13. 2 Ibid. p. 33. 3 Appar. Medic., xi. p. 221, 2nd edit. 4 Stirp. Adversar., p. 219. SDomest. Brunsvic., p. 136. 6 Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. ii. ann. 2, obs. 20. 7 Materia medica, ii, p. 233. 64 INTRODUCTION. in health, an effect which Echtius,' Ledelius,2 and Rau,3 actually saw it produce. If, as asserted by Pet. Rossi,4 Van Mons,5 J. Monti," Sybel,7 and others, the poison sumach has the faculty of producing pimples which gradually cover the entire body, it may be easily perceived how this plant is capable of effecting a homoeopathic cure of various kinds of herpetic eruptions, which it really has done, according to information furnished by Dufresnoy and Van Mons. What could have bestowed upon the poison sumach (as in a case cited by Alderson,s) the power of curing a paralysis of the lower extremities, attended with weakness of the intellectual organs, if it did not, of itself, evidently possess the faculty of depressing the muscular powers and of acting on the imagination of the patient to such a degree, as to make him believe that he is at the point of death, as in a case witnessed by Zadig.9 Dulcamara, according to Carrere,10 has cured the 1 In Adami, Vita Medic. p. 72. 2 Misc. Nat. Curios., dec. ii. ann. 2, obs. 140. 3Rau, iiber den Werth des homoop. Heilverfahrens, p. 73. 4 Observ. de Nonnullis Plantis, quee pro venenatis habentur. Pisis, 1667. 6 In Dufresnoy, Des propridtes de la plante appelee rhus radicans. p. 206. SActa Instit. Bonon. sc. et art. iii. 165. 7 In Med. Annalen, 1811, July. 8 In Samml. aus. Abh. f. pr. Aerzte, xviii. 1. 9 In Hufeland's Journal der prakt. Heilk. v. p. 3. 10 Carrere, (and Starcke,) Abhandl. iiber die Eigenschaften des Nachtschattens oder Bittersiisses. Jena, 1786, pp. 20-23. INTRODUCTION. 65 most violent diseases caused by a chill, which could result from no other cause but that this herb, in cold and damp weather, frequently produces similar affections to those which arise from a chill, as Carrfre himself has observed,' and likewise Starcke.2 Fritze3 saw dulcamara produce convulsions, and De Haen4 witnessed the very same effects attended with delirium; on the other hand, convulsions attended with delirium, have yielded to small doses of dulcamara administered by the last mentioned physician.5--It were vain to seek amid the vast domain of hypotheses the cause that renders dulcamara so efficacious in a species of herpes, as witnessed by Carrere,6 Fouquet,7 and Poupart.. Nature, which requires the aid of homoeopathy to perform a safe cure, sufficiently explains the cause, in the faculty possessed by dulcamara, of producing a certain species of herpes. Carrere saw the use of this plant excite herpetic eruptions which 1 CarrBre (and Starcke), Abhandl. iiber die Eigenschaften des Nachtschattens oder Bittersiisses. Jena, 1786, pp. 20-23. 2 In Carrere, ibid. p. 140, 249. ' Annalen des klinischen Instituts, iii. p. 45. 4 Ratio Medendi. Tom. iv. p. 228. 5 Ibid., where he says: "Dulco-amarem stipites majori dosi convulsiones et deliria excitant, moderata vero spasmos, convulsionesque solvunt." How near was De Haen to the discovery of the therapeutic law most in conformity to nature! 6 Ratio Medendi. Tom. iv. p. 92. 7 In Razoux, Tables Nosologiques. 8 Traite des Dartres. Paris, 1782, pp. 184, 192. 66 INTRODUCTION. covered the entire body during a fortnight;' and on another occasion where it produced the same on the hands,2 and a third time where it fixed itself on the labia pudendi.3 Rucker4 saw the solanum nigrum produce swelling of the entire body. This is the reason that Gatacker5 and Cirillo6 succeeded in curing with its aid, (homoeopathically) a species of dropsy. Boerhaave,7 Sydenham,8 and Radcliffe9 cured another species of dropsy with the aid of the sambucus niger, because, as Haller1 informs us, this plant causes an cedematous swelling when applied externally. De Haen," Sarcone,12 and Pringle,13 have rendered due homage to truth and experience by declaring openly that they cured pleurisy with the scilla maritima, a root which, on account of its excessive acrid properties, ought to be forbidden in a disease of this 1Trait4 des Dartres. Paris, 1782, p. 96. 2 Ibid. p. 96. SIbid. p. 164. SCommerc. Liter. Noric. 1731, p. 372. SVersuche & Bemerk. der. Edinb. Gesellschaft, Altenburg, 1762, vii. pp. 95, 98. 6 Consult. Medichi. Tom. iii. Naples, 1738. 4to. 7 Historia Plantarum. P. I. p. 207. 8 Opera, p. 496. 9 In Haller, Arzneimittellehre, p. 349. 10 In Vicat, Plantes veneneuses, p. 125. 1 Ratio Medendi, P. I. p. 13. 12 History of Diseases in Naples, vol. i. p. 175. 13 Obs. on the Diseases of the Army, ed. 7, p. 143. INTRODUCTION. 67 nature, where, according to the received method, only sedative, relaxing, and cooling remedies are admissible. The disease in question subsided, nevertheless, under the influence of squill on homoeopathic principles; for T. C. Wagner' formerly saw the action of this plant alone produce pleurisy and inflammation of the lungs. A great many practitioners, D. Criiger, Ray, Kellner, Kaaw Boerhaave, and others,2 have observed that datura stramonium excites a singular kind of delirium and convulsions. It is precisely this faculty that enabled physicians to cure with its aid demonomania3 (fantastic madness attended with spasms of the limbs) and other convulsions, as was done by Sidren4 and Wedenberg." If, in the hands of Sidren' it cured two cases of chorea, one of which had been occasioned by fright, and the other by mercurial vapour, it was because it possessed the faculty of exciting involuntary movements of the limbs, as observed by Kaaw Boerhaave, and Lobstein. Numerous observations, and among others those made by Schenk, have shewn us that it can destroy consciousness and 1 Observationes Clinicse. Lubec, 1737. 2 C. Criiger, in Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. iii. ann. 2, obs. 88.-Boerhaave, Impetum Faciens. Leyden, 1745, p. 282.-Kellner, in the Bresl. Sammnl. 172. 3 Veckoskrift for Laekare, vi. p. 40 et seq. ' Diss. de Stramonii usu in Malis Convulsivis. Upsala, 1793. 5 Diss. de Stramonii usu. Upsala, 1773. ' Diss. Morborum Casus, spec. i. Upsala, 1785. F2 68 INTRODUCTION. memory in a very short time; therefore, it ought not to surprise us if, according to the testimony of Sauvages and Schinz, it possesses the faculty of curing weakness of memory. By the same rule, Schmalz' succeeded in curing with the aid of this plant a case of melancholy, alternating with madness, because, according to Acosta,2 it has the power of exciting similar alternating mental affections when administered to a person in health. Percival, Stahl, Quarin,3 and many other physicians, have observed that cinchona occasions oppression of the stomach. Some (Morton, Friborg, Bauer, and Quarin) have seen this substance produce vomiting and diarrhoea; others (D. Criiger and Morton), syncope; others, great debility; others (Thomson, Richard, Stahl, and C. E. Fisher), a kind of jaundice; others (Quarin and Fischer), bitterness of the mouth; and yet others, tension of the abdomen. And it is precisely when these complicated evils occur in intermittent fevers that Torti and Cleghorn recommend the use of cinchona alone. The advantageous effects of this bark in cases of exhaustion, indigestion, and loss of appetite, resulting from acute fevers (particularly when the latter have been treated by venesection, evacuants, and debilitants), depend on the faculty which it possesses of depressing excessively the vital 1 Chir. und Medic. Vorfdille, Leipzick, 1781, p. 178. 2 In P. Schenck, lib. 1, obs. 139. SQuoted in my Mat. med., iii. INTRODUCTION. 69 powers, producing mental and bodily exhaustion, indigestion, and loss of appetite, as observed by Cleghorn, Friborg, Criiger, Romberg, Stahl, Thomson, and others.' How would it have been possible to stop haemorrhages with ipecacuanha, as effected more than once by Baglivi, Barbeyrac, Gianella, Dalberg, Bergius, and others, if this medicine did not of itself possess the faculty of exciting heemorrhage - as Murray, Scott, and Geoffroy2 have witnessed. How could it be so efficacious in asthma, and particularly in spasmodic asthma, as it is described to have been by Akenside," Meyer,4 Bang,5 Stoll,6 Fouquet,7 and Rano,8s if it did not of itself produce (without exciting any evacuation) asthma, and spasmodic asthma in particular, as Murray,' Geoffroy,10 and Scott' have observed it to do? Could any clearer hints be given that medicines ought to be applied to the cure of diseases according to the morbid effects which they produce? SVide my Mat. med., iii. 2 Ibid. pp. 259-264. 3 Medic. Transact. I. No. 7, p. 39. 4 Diss de Ipecac. refracta dosi usu, p. 34. SPraxis Medica, p. 346. 6 Prmlectiones, p. 221. 7 Journal de Medecine. Tom. 62, p. 137. 8 In Act. Reg. Soc. Med. Hafn., ii. p. 163, iii. p. 361. 9 Medic. Pract. Bibl., p. 237. 10 Traite de la matiere medicale, ii. p. 157. n In Med. Comment. of Edinb., iv. p. 74, 70 INTRODUCTION. It would be impossible to conceive why ignatia could be so efficacious in convulsions as we are assured it is by Hermann,' Valentin,2 and an anonymous writer,3 if it did not possess the power of exciting similar convulsions, as witnessed by Bergius,4 Camelli,5 and Durius.6 Persons who have received a blow or a contusion feel pains in the side, a desire to vomit, lancinating and burning pain in the hypochondria, all of which are accompanied with anxiety, tremors, and involuntary starts, similar to those produced by an electric shock, formication in the parts that have received the injury, &c. As the arnica montana produces similar symptoms, according to the observations of Meza, Vicat, Crichton, Collins, Aaskow, Stoll, and J. C. Lange,7 it may be easily conceived that this plant will cure the effects of a blow, fall, or contusion, as is familiar to the experience of a host of physicians, and even of whole nations, for centuries past. Among the effects which belladonna excites when administered to a person in sound health, are symptoms which, taken collectively, present an image Cynosura Mat. med., ii. p. 231. 2 Hist. Simplic. Reform. p. 194, ~ 4. 3 In Act. Berol., dec. ii. vol. x. p. 12. " Materia Medica, p. 150. 5 Philos. Trans. vol. xxi. No. 250. " Miscell. Nat. Cur., dec. iii. ann. 9, 10. S Vide my Materia medica, i. INTRODUCTION. 71 greatly resembling that species of hydrophobia caused by the bite of a mad dog, a disease which Mayerne,' Miinch,2 Buchholz,3 and Neimike,4 cured in a perfect manner with this plant, homoeopathically." The patient in vain endeavours to sleep, the respiration is embarrassed, he is consumed by a burning thirst attended with anxiety; the moment any liquids are presented to him he rejects them with violence; his countenance becomes red, his eyes fixed and sparkling (as observed by F. C. Grimm); he experiences a feeling of suffocation while drinking (according to E. Camerarius and Sauter); for the most part he is incapable of swallowing anything (as affirmed by May, Lottinger, Sicelius, Buchave, D'Hermont, Manetti, Vicat, and Cullen); 1 Praxeos in Morbis Internis Syntagma Alterum. Vienna, 1697, p. 136. 2 Beobachtungen bei angewendeter Belladonne bei den Menschen. Stendal, 1789. 3 Heilsame Wirkungen der Belladonne in ausgebrochener Wuth. Erfurt, 1785. 4 In J. H. Minch's Beobachtungen. Th. i. p. 74. 5 If Belladonna has frequently failed in cases of decided rabies, we ought to remember that it cannot cure in such instances but by its faculty of producing effects similar to those of the malady itself, and that, consequently, it ought not to be administered but in the smallest possible doses, as will be shown in the Organon (~ cclxxv.-cclxxxiii.). In general it has been administered in very large doses, so that the patients necessarily died, not of the disease, but of the remedy. However, it is probable that there is more than one degree or species of hydrophobia and rabies, and consequently the most suitable homccopathic remedy is sometimes hyoscyamus, and sometimes stramonium, according as the symptoms vary. INTRODUCTION. he is alternately actuated by terror and a desire to bite those about him (as seen by Sauter, Dumoulin, Buchave, and Mardorf); he spits everywhere around him (according to Sauter); he endeavours to make his escape (as we are informed by Dumoulin, E. Gmelin, and Buc'hoz); and there is continual moving about of the body (as witnessed by Boucher, E. Gmelin, and Sauter.)' Belladonna has also effected the cure of different kinds of madness and melancholy, as in the cases reported by Evers, Schmucker, Schmalz, and the two Miinchs, and many others, because it possesses the faculty of producing different kinds of insanity, like those noted by Rau, Grimm, Hasenest, Mardorf, Hoyer, Dillenius, and others.2 Henning,3 after vainly endeavouring, during three months, to cure a case of amaurosis with coloured spots before the eyes, by a variety of medicines, was at length struck with the idea that this malady might perhaps be occasioned by gout, although the patient had never experienced the slightest attack; and upon this supposition he was by chance induced to prescribe belladonna,4 which effected a speedy cure without any inconvenience. He would undoubtedly have made choice of Vide my Materia medica, vol. i. 2 Referred to in my Materia medica, vol. i. 3 In Hufeland's Journal, xxv. 4, pp. 70, 74. 4 Mere conjecture alone has led physicians to rank belladonna among the remedies for gout. The disease which can, with propriety, be denominated gout, never will nor can be cured by belladonna. INTRODUCTION:. 73 this medicine at the commencement, had he known that it was not possible to perform a cure but by the aid of a remedy which produces symptoms similar to those of the disease itself; and that, according to the infallible law of nature, belladonna could not fail to cure this case homoeopathically, since, by the testimony of Sauter and Buchholz,2 it excites a species of amaurosis with coloured spots before the eyes. Hyoscyamus has cured spasms which strongly resembled epilepsy, as witnessed by Mayerne,3 Storck, Collin, and others. It produces this effect by the very same power whereby it excites convulsions similar to those of epilepsy, as observed in the writings of E. Camerarius, C. Seliger, Hiinerwolf, A. Hamilton, Planchon, Acosta, and others.4 Fothergill," Storck, Hellwick, and Ofterdinger, have used hyoscyamus with success in certain kinds of mental derangement. But the use of it would have been attended with equal success in the hands of many other physicians, had they confined it to the cure of that species of mental alienation which hyoscyamus is capable of producing in its primary action, viz. a kind of stupefaction, that Van Helmont, Wedel, J. F. Gmelin, Laserre, Hiinerwolf, A. Hamilton, In Hufeland's Journal, xi. 2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 252. 3 Prax. Med., p. 23. 4 Vide my Materia medica, vol. iv. 5 Memoirs of Med. Soc. of London, i. pp. 310, 314. 74 INTRODUCTION. Kiernander, J. Stedmann, Tozetti, J. Faber, and Wendt, saw produced by the action of this plant.1 By taking the effects of hyoscyamus collectively, which the latter observers have seen it produce, they present a picture of hysteria of considerable severity. Accordingly we find in J. A. P. Gessner, St6rck, and in the Act. Nat. Cur.2 that a case of hysteria which bore great resemblance to the above-mentioned was cured by the use of this plant. Schenkbecher would never have succeeded in curing a vertigo of twenty years' standing, if this plant did not possess, in a very high degree, the power of creating generally an analogous state, as attested by Hiinerwolf, Blom, Navier, Planchon, Sloane, Stedmann, Greding, Wepfer, Vicat, and Bernigau.4 A man, who became deranged through jealousy, was for a long time tormented by Mayer Abramson" with remedies that produced no effect on him, when, under the name of a soporific, he one day administered hyoscyamus, which cured him speedily. Had he known that this plant excites jealousy and madness in persons who are in health,6 and had he been acquainted with 1 See my Materia medica, iv. 2 IV. obs. 8. 3 Von der Kinkina, Schierling, Bilsenkraut, &c. Riga, 1769, p. 162. SVide my Materia medica, vol. iv. 5 In Hufeland's Journal, xix. II. p. 60. 6 Vide my Materia med., vol. iv. INTRODUCTION. 75 the homceopathic law, (the only natural basis of therapeutics), he would have been able to administer hyoscyamus from the very commencement with perfect confidence, and thus have avoided fatiguing the patient with remedies which (not being homceopathic) could be of no manner of service to him. The mixed prescriptions which were employed for a long time with the greatest success by Hecker1 in a case of spasmodic constriction of the eyelids, would have proved ineffectual, if some happy chance had not included hyoscyamus, which, according to Wepfer,2 excites a similar affection in persons who are in sound health. Neither did Withering3 succeed in curing a spasmodic constriction of the pharynx, with inability to swallow, until he administered hyoscyamus, whose special action consists of causing a spasmodic constriction of the throat, with inability to swallow, an effect which Tozetti, Hamilton, Bernigau, Sauvages, and Hiinerwolf4 have seen it produce in a very high degree. How could camphor produce such salutary effects as the veracious Huxham5 says it does, in the socalled slow nervous fevers, where the temperature of 1 Hufeland's Journal, i. p. 354. 2 De Cicuta Aquatica. Basil, 1716, p. 320. ' Edinb. Med. Comment. Dec. ii. b. vi. p. 263. 4 See my Mat. med., vol. iv. 5 Opera, t. i. p. 172, t. ii. p. 84. 76 INTRODUCTION. the body is lowered, where the sensibility is depressed, and the vital powers greatly diminished, if the result of its immediate action upon the body were not to produce a state similar in every respect to the latter, as observed by G. Alexander, Cullen, and F. Hoffmann? Spirituous wines administered in small doses have cured, homceopathically, fevers that were purely inflammatory. C. Crivellati,2 H. Augenius,3 A. Mundella,4 and two anonymous writers,5 have afforded us the proofs. Asclepiades6 on one occasion cured an inflammation of the brain by administering a small quantity of wine. A case of feverish delirium attended with stertorous breathing, similar to that state of deep intoxication which wine produces, was cured in a single night by wine which Rademacher7 administered to the patient. Can any one deny the power of a medicinal irritation analogous to the disease itself (similia similibus) in either of these cases? A strong infusion of tea produces anxiety and palpitation of the heart in persons who are not in the habit of drinking it; on the other hand, if taken in small doses, it is an excellent remedy for such symp1 See my Mat. med., vol. iv. 2 Trattato dell' uso e modo di dare il vino nelle febri acute. Rome, 1600. 3 Epist. t. ii. lib. 2, ep. 8. 4 Epist. xiv. Basil, 1588. SEph. Nat. Cur., dec. ii. ann. 2, obs. 53. Gazette de Sante, 1738. SCael. Aurelianus, Acut. lib. i. c. 16. 7 In Hufeland's Journal, xvi. I. p. 92. INTRODUCTION. 77 toms when produced by other causes, as testified by G. L. Rau.1 A case resembling the agonies of death, in which the patient was convulsed to such a degree as to deprive him of his senses, alternating with attacks of spasmodic breathing, sometimes also sobbing and stertorous respiration, with icy coldness of the face and body, lividity of the feet and hands, and feebleness of the pulse, a state perfectly analogous to the whole of the symptoms which Schweikert and others saw produced by the use of opium,) was at first treated unsuccessfully by Stiitz,3 with ammonia, but afterwards cured in a speedy and permanent manner by opium. In this instance, could any one fail to discover the homoeopathic principle made use of without the knowledge of the person who employed it? According to Vicat, J. C. Grimm, and others,4 opium also produces a powerful and almost irresistible tendency to sleep, accompanied by profuse perspiration and delirium. This was the reason why Osthoff5 was afraid to administer it in a case of epidemic fever which exhibited similar symptoms, for the principles of the system which he pursued, prohibited the use 1 Ueber den Werth des homSopathischen Heilv. Heidelberg, 1824, p. 72. 2 See my Mat. med., vol. i. 3 In Hufeland's Journal, x. IV. 4 See my Mat. med., vol. i. S In the Salzburg Med. Chirurg. Journal, 1805, iii. p. 110. 78 INTRODUCTION. of it under such circumstances. (Poor system!) However, after having exhausted in vain all the known remedies and seeing his patient at the point of death, he resolved, at all hazards, to administer a small quantity of opium, whose effects proved salutary, as they always must, when given according to the unerring law of homoeopathy. J. Lind' also avowed that opium removes a sense of weight in the head, with heat of skin and difficulty of perspiring; it relieves the head, destroys the burning febrile heat, softens the skin, and bathes its surface in a profuse perspiration. But Lind was not aware that this salutary effect of opium is (contrary to the axioms of the medical schools) owing to the circumstance of its producing analogous morbid symptoms, when administered to a person in health. There have, nevertheless, been physicians here and there, across whose minds this truth has passed like a flash of lightning without ever giving birth to a suspicion of the laws of homceopathy. For example, Alston2 says that opium is a remedy that excites heat, notwithstanding which, it certainly diminishes heat where it already exists. De la Guerene3 administered opium in a case of fever attended with violent headache, tension and hardness of the pulse, dryness and 1 Versuch iiber die Krankheiten denen die Europier in heissen Klimateli unterworfen sind. Riga, 1773. 2 In Edinb. Versuchen, v. p. I. art. 12. 3 In RSmer's Annalen der Arzneimittellehre I. ii. p. 6. INTRODUCTION. 79 roughness of the skin, burning heat, and hence difficult and debilitating perspirations, the exhalation of which was constantly interrupted by the extreme agitation of the patient. This remedy was successful, because opium possesses the faculty of creating a feverish state in healthy persons, which is perfectly analogous, as stated by many observers,' and of which he was ignorant. In a fever attended with coma, where the patient lay extended, deprived of speech, the eyes open, the limbs stiff, the pulse small and intermittent, the respiration disturbed and stertorous, (all of which are symptoms perfectly similar to those which opium excites, according to the report of Delacroix, Rademacher, Crumpe, Pyl, Vicat, Sauvages, and many others,)2 this was the only substance which C. L. Hoffmann3 saw produce any good effects, which were naturally the result of a homoeopathic action. Wirthenson,4 Sydenham," and Marcus,6 have even succeeded in curing lethargic fevers with opium. A case of lethargy of which De Meza7 effected a cure, would yield only to this substance, which, in such cases, acts homceopathically, since it possesses the power of producing lethargy. 1 See my Mat. med., vol. i. 2 Ibid. 3 Von Scharbock, Lustseuche, &c. Miinster, 1787, p. 295. SOpii vires fibras cordis delibitare, &c. Miinster, 1775. SOpera, p. 654. SMagazin fiir Therapie, I. i. p. 7. 7 Act. reg. soc. med. Hafn. iii. p. 202. 80 8INTRODUCTION. C. C. Matthai,' in an obstinate case of nervous disease, where the principal symptoms were insensibility and numbness of the arms, legs, and belly, after having for a long time treated it with inappropriate, that is to say, non-homoeopathic remedies, at length effected a cure by opium, which, according to Stiitz, J. Young, and others,2 excites similar symptoms of a more intense nature, and which, as every one must perceive, only succeeded on this occasion on homoeopathic principles. The cure of a case of lethargy, which had already existed several days, and which Hufeland performed by the use of opium,3 by what other law could this have been effected, if not by that of homoeopathy, which has remained unknown till the present time? In that peculiar species of epilepsy which never manifests itself but during sleep, De Haen discovered that it was not a sleep at all, but a lethargic stupor, with stertorous respiration, perfectly similar to that which opium produces in persons who are in health; it was by means of opium alone that he transformed it into a natural and healthy sleep, while at the same time he delivered the patient of his epilepsy.' How is it possible that opium, which of all vege1 In Struve's Triumph der Heilk., iii. 2 See my Mat. med., vol. i. 3 In Hufeland's Journal, xii. I. 4 Ratio Medendi, v. p. 126. INTRODUCTION. 81 table substances is the one whose administration in small doses produces the most powerful and obstinate constipation, should, notwithstanding, be the most efficient remedy in cases of constipation, which endanger life, were it not in virtue of the homceopathic law.so little known-that is to say, if nature had not decreed that medicines should subdue natural diseases by a special action belonging to them, which consists in producing an analogous affection? Opium, whose primary effects are so powerful in constipating the bowels, was discovered by Tralles1 to be the only cure in a case of ileus, which he had till then, treated ineffectually with evacuants and other remedies. Lentilius2 and G. W. Wedel,3 Wirthenson, Bell, Heister, and Richter,4 have also confirmed the efficacy of opium, even when administered alone in this disease. The candid Bohn was likewise convinced by experience that nothing but opiates would act as purgatives in the colic called miserere;5 and the celebrated F. Hoffmann, in the most dangerous cases of this nature, placed his sole reliance on opium combined in the anodyne liquor called after his name.6 SOpii usus et abusus. Sect. ii. p. 260. 2 Eph. Nat. Cur., dec. iii. ann. i. app. p. 131. 3 Opiologia, p. 120. 4 Anfangsgriinde der Wundarzneikunde, V. ~ 328.-Chronische Krankheiten. Berlin, 1816, ii. p. 220. 5 De Officio Medici. 6 Medicin. rat. system. T. iv. P. II. p. 297. 82 INTRODUCTION. All the theories contained in the two hundred thousand volumes that have been writter. on medicine, in entire ignorance of the therapeutic:law of homceopathy, would they be able to furnish us with a rational explanation of this and so many other similar facts? Have their doctrines conducted us to the discovery of this law of nature so clearly manifested in every perfect, speedy, and perma.nent cure-in other words, have they taught us that when we use medicines in the treatment of diseases, it is necessary to take for a guide the resemblance of their effects upon a person in health, to the symptoms of those very diseases we seek to cure Rave1 and Wedekind2 have suppressed uterine heemorrhage with the aid of savine, which, as every one knows, causes uterine hcemorrhage, and consequently abortion, in women who are in health. Could any one, in this case, fail to perceive the homoeopathic law which ordains that we should cure similia similibus? In that species of spasmodic asthma designated by the name of Millar's asthma, how could musk act almost specifically, if it did not of itself produce fits of spasmodic constriction of the chest without cough, as observed by F. Hoffmann?3 Could vaccination protect us from the small-pox SBeobachtungen und Schliisse, ii. p. 7. 2 In Hufeland's Journal, x. I. p. 77. ' Med. ration. system. iii. p. 92. INTRODUCTION. 83 otherwise than homceopathically? Without mentioning any other traits of close resemblance which often exist between these two maladies, they have this in common-they generally appear but once during the course of a person's life; they leave behind cicatrices equally deep; they both occasion tumefaction of the axillary glands; fevers that are analogous; an inflamed areola round each pock; and finally, opthalmia and convulsions. The cow-pox would even destroy the small-pox on its first appearance, that is to say, it would cure this malady when already present, if the small-pox were not stronger than it. To produce this effect, then, it only wants that excess of power which according to the law of nature ought to accompany the homccopathic resemblance, in order to effect a cure (~ clviii). Vaccination, considered as a homceopathic remedy, cannot, therefore, prove efficacious except when employed previous to the appearance of the small-pox, which is the stronger of the two. When so employed it excites a disease very analogous (and consequently, homceopathic) to the smallpox, after whose course, the human body, which, as usual, can only be attacked once with a disease of this nature, is henceforward protected against a similar contagion.' 1 This mode of homoeopathic cure in antecessum (which is called preservation or prophylaxis) also appears possible in many other cases. For example, by carrying on our persons sulphur, we think G2 84 INTRODUCTION. It is well known that retention of urine with ineffectual efforts to urinate, is one of the most common and painful evils which the use of cantharides produces. This point has been sufficiently established by J. Camerarius, Baccius, Van Hilden, Forest, J. Lanzoni, Van der Wiel, and Werlhoff.1 Cantharides administered internally, and with caution, ought consequently to be a very salutary homoeopathic remedy in similar cases of painful dysuria. And this is in reality the case. For, without enumerating all the Greek physicians who instead of our cantharides made use of meloe cichorii, Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Capo di Vacca, Riedlin, Th. Bartholin,2 Young,3 Smith,4 Raymond,5 De Meza,6 Brisbane,7 and others, performed perfect cures of very painful ischuria that was not dependent upon any mechanical obstacle, with cantharides. Huxham has seen this remedy produce the best effects in cases of the same nature; he praises it highly, and would willingly have made we are preserved from the itch which is so common among woolworkers; and by taking the smallest possible dose of belladonna, that we are protected from scarlet fever. 1 See my Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis. Leipsic, 1805. i. p. 83. 2 Epist. 4, p. 345. 3 Phil. Trans. No. 280. 4 Medic. Communications, ii. p. 505. 5 In Auserlesene Abhandl. ffir pract. Aerzte., iii. p. 460. Act. reg. soc. med. Hafn. ii. p. 302. 7 Auserlesene Fiille. Altenburg, 1777. INTRODUCTION. use of it had not the precepts of the old school of medicine (which, deeming itself wiser than nature herself, prescribes in such cases sedative and relaxing remedies) prevented him, contrary to his own conviction, from using a remedy which, in such cases, is specific or homceopathic.1 In cases of recent inflammatory gonorrhoea, where Sachs von Lewenheim, Hannaeus, Bartholin, Lister, Mead, and particularly Werlhoff, administered cantharides in very small doses with perfect success, this substance manifestly removed the most severe symptoms of the commencing disease.2 It produced this effect by virtue of the faculty it possesses (according to the testimony of almost every observer) of exciting painful micturition, scalding urine, inflammation of the urethra (Wendt), and even, when applied externally, a species of inflammatory gonorrhoea (Wichmann).3 SOpera, edit. Reichel, t. ii. p. 124. 2 I say "the most severe symptoms of the commencing disease," because the subsequent treatment demands other considerations; for, although there may have been cases of gonorrhoea so slight as to disappear very soon of themselves, and almost without any assistance whatever, still there are others of a graver nature, especially that which is become so common since the time of the French campaigns, which might be termed gonorrlhea sycotica, and which is communicated by coition like the chancrous disease, although of a very different nature. 3 Auswahl aus den Niirnberger gelehrten Unterhaltungen, i. p. 249, note. 86 INTRODUCTION. The administration of sulphur internally, very often occasions, in persons of an irritable disposition, tenesmus attended with vomiting and griping, as attested by Walther.' It is by virtue of this property which sulphur possesses, that physicians have been able2 to cure with its aid, dysentery and haemorrhoidal diseases attended with tenesmus, as observed by Werlhoff,3 and according to Rave,4 huemorrhoidal colics. It is well known that the waters at Tceplitz, like all other warm sulphurous mineral waters, cause the appearance of an exanthema which strongly resembles the itch so prevalent among persons employed in wool-working. It is precisely this homoeopathic virtue which they possess that removes various kinds of psoric eruptions. Can there be any thing more sufocating than sulphurous fumes? Yet it is the vapour arising from the combustion of sulphur that Bucquet' discovered to be the best means of reanimating persons in a state of asphyxia produced by another cause. From the writings of Beddoes and others, we learn that the English physicians found nitric acid of great utility in salivation and ulceration of the mouth occasioned by the use of mercury. This acid could SProgr. de Sulphure et Marte, Lips. 1743, p. 5. 2 Medic. National-Zeitung, 1798, p. 153. 3 Observat. de Febribus, p. 3, ~ 6. i In Hufeland's Journal, vii. II. p. 168. 5 Edinb. Med. Comment., ix. INTRODUCTION. 87 never have proved useful in such cases if it did not of itself excite salivation and ulceration of the mouth. To produce these effects, it is only necessary to bathe the surface of the body with it, as Scott' and Blair2 observed, and the same will occur if it be administered internally, according to the testimony of Aloyn,3 Luke,4 I. Ferriar," and G. Kelly.6 Fritze7 saw a species of tetanus produced by a bath impregnated with carbonate of potash, and A. von Humboldt8 by the application of a solution of salt of tartar increased the irritability of the muscles to such a degree as to excite tetanic convulsions. The curative power which caustic potash exercises in all kinds of tetanus, in which Stiitz and others have found it so useful, could it be accounted for in a more simple or rational manner than by the faculty which this alkali possesses of producing homoeopathic effects? Arsenic, whose effects are so powerful upon the human economy that we cannot decide whether it is more hurtful in the hands of the rash than it is salutary in those of the prudent,-arsenic could never In Hufeland's Journal, iv. p. 353. 2 Neueste Erfahrungen. Glogau, 1801. SIn the Memoires de la Soc. Mid. d'emulation, i. p. 195. 4 In Beddoes. 5 In the Sammlung auserles. Abhandl. fur pract. Aerzte, xix. ii. 6 Ibid. xix. I. p. 116.? In Hufeland's Journal, xii. I. p. 116. 8 Versuch iiber die gereizte Muskel-und Nervenfaser. Posen and Berlin, 1797. 88 INTRODUCTION. have effected so many remarkable cures of cancer in the face, as witnessed by numerous physicians, among whom I will only cite Fallopius,' Bernhardt,' and Ronnow,3 if this metallic oxide did not possess the homceopathic power of producing in healthy persons, very painful tubercles which are cured with difficulty, as witnessed by Amatus Lusitanus;4 very deep and malignant ulcerations, according to the testimony of Heinreich5 and Knape; and cancerous ulcers, as testified by Heinze.' The ancients would not have been unanimous in the praise which they bestowed on the magnetic arsenical plaster of Angelus Sala" against pestilential buboes and carbuncles, if arsenic did not, according to the report of Degner' and Pfann,'0 give rise to inflammatory tumours which quickly turn to gangrene, and to carbuncles or malignant pustules, as observed by Verzascha"l and Pfann.'2 De ulceribus et tumoribus, lib. 2. Venice, 1563. 2 In the Journal de Medecine, chirurg. et pharm., lvii. March, 1782. 3 Konigl. vetensk. acad. Handl., f. a. 1776. 4 Obs. et cur. Cent. ii. cur. 34. Act. nat. cur., ii. obs. 10. * Annalen der Staatsarzneikunde, i. 1. 7 In Hufeland's Journal for September, 1813, p. 48. s Anatom. Vitrioli, tr. ii. in Opera rmed. chym. Frankfort, 1647, pp. 381, 463. 9 Act. nat. cur., vi. 10 Annalen der Staatsarzneikunde, loc. cit. 1' Obs. med. cent. Basil, 1677, obs. 66. 12 Samml. merkwiird. Fiille. Nuremberg, 1750, pp. 119, 130. INTRODUCTION. 89 And whence could arise that curative power which it exhibits in certain species of intermittent fever' (" virtue attested by so many thousands of exampls, b in the practical application of which, sufficient p tion has not yet been observed, and which virtt:ue asserted centuries ago by Nicholas Myrepsus subsequently placed beyond a doubt by the testimony of Slevogt, Molitor, Jacobi, J. C. Bernhardt, Jiingken, Fauve, Brera, Darwin, May, Jackson and Fowler,) if it did not proceed from its peculiar faculty of exciting fever, as almost every observer of the evils resulting from this substance has remarked, particularly Amatus Lusitanus, Degner, Buchholz, Heun and Knape? We may confidently believe E. Alexander,2 when he tells us that arsenic is a sovereign remedy in cases of angina pectoris, since Tachenius, Guilbert, Preussius, Thilenius and Pyl have seen it give rise to very great oppression of the chest, Gresselius,3 to a dyspnoea almost amounting to sufocation; and Majault4 in particular, saw it produce sudden attacks of asthma excited by walking, attended with great depression of the vital powers. The convulsions which are caused by the administration of copper, and those observed by Tondi, Ramsay, Fabas, Pyl, and Cosmier, as proceeding from the SSee my Materia medica, vol. ii. ' Med. comm. of Edinb., dec. ii. t. i. p. 85. 3 Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. i. ann. 2, p. 149. 4 In the Sammlung auserles. Abhandl. fur Aerzte, vii. 1. 90 INTRODUCTION. use of aliments impregnated with copper; the reiterated attacks of epilepsy which J. Lazerme1 saw result from the accidental introduction of a copper coin into he stomach, and which PfiindelP saw produced by he ingestion of a compound of sal-ammoniac and copper into the digestive canal, sufficiently explain, to those physicians who will take the trouble to reflect upon it, how copper has been able to cure cases of chorea, as reported by R. Willan,3 Walcker,4 Theussink,5 and Delarive,6 and why preparations of copper have so frequently effected the cure of epilepsy, as attested by Batty, Baumes, Bierling, Boerhaave, Causland, Cullen, Duncan, Feuerstein, Hevetius, Lieb, Magennis, C. F. Michaelis, Reil, Russell, Stisser, Thilenius, Weissmann, Weizenbreyer, Whithers and others. If Poterius, Wepfer, F. Hoffmann, R. A. Vogel, Thierry, and Albrecht, have cured a species of phthisis, hectic fever, chronic catarrh, and mucous asthma, with tin, it is because this metal possesses the faculty of producing a species of phthisis, as Stahl7 has observed. And how could it cure pains De morbis internis capitis. Amsterdam, 1748, p. 253. 2 In Hufeland's Journal, ii. p. 264; and according to the testimony of Burdach, in his System of Medicine, i. Leip. 1807, p. 284. 3 Sammlung. auserles. Abhandl., xii. p. 62. 4 Ibid. xi. iii. p. 672. 5 Waarnemingen, No. 18. 6 In Kuihn's phys. med. Journal, January, 1800, p. 58. 7 Mat. med. Cap. 6, p. 83. 92 INTRODUCTION. but the pills acted specially as a saturnine internal remedy, and cured homceopathically. If Otto Tachenius and Saxtorph formerly cured cases of obstinate hypochondriasis with the aid of lead, we ought to bear in mind that this metal tends of itself to excite hypochondriasis, as may be seen in the description Lazuriaga gives of its ill effects.' We ought not to be surprised that Marcus2 speedily cured an inflammatory swelling of the tongue and of the pharynx with a remedy (mercury) which, according to the daily experience of physicians, has a specific tendency to produce inflammation and tumefaction of the internal parts of the mouth, phenomena to which it gives rise when merely applied to the surface of the body in the form of ointment or plaster, as witnessed by Degner,3 Frieze,4 Alberti,5 Engel,6 and many others. The weakening of the intellectual faculties (Swediaur 7), imbecility (Degner"), and mental alienation (Larry9), which have been seen to result from the use of mercury, joined to the almost specific SRecueil period. de litterature, i. p. 20. 2 Magazin II. ii. 3 Act. Nat. Cur. vi. App. 4 Geschichte und Versuche einer chirurg. Gesellschaft. Copenhagen, 1774. 5 Jurisprudentia Medica, v. p. 600. 6 Specimina Medica. Berlin, 1781, p. 99. 7 Traite des Malad. vener. ii. p. 368. 8 Loc. cit. 9 Memoires et Observations in the Description de 1'Egypt. Tom. i. INTRODUCTION. 93 faculty, which this metal is known to possess, of exciting salivation, explain how G. Perfect' was enabled, by the use of mercury, to cure, in a permanent manner, a case of melancholia alternating with increased secretion of saliva: How does it happen that preparations of mercury proved so successful in the hands of Seelig,2 in the treatment of angina accompanied with purpura; in those of Hamilton,3 Hoffmann,4 Marcus,5 Rush,6 Colden,7 Bailey, and Michaelis,8 in the treatment of other kinds of quinsy? It is evidently because this metal is capable of producing a species of angina of the worst description.9 It was certainly by homoeopathic means that Sauter 0 1Annalen einer Anstalt fur Wahnsinnige. Hanover, 1804. 2 In Hufeland's Journal, xvi. I. p. 24. SEdinb. med. comment., ix. I. p. 8. 4 Medic. Wochenblatt, 1787, No. 1. 5 Magazin flir Specielle Therapie, ii. p. 334. 6 Medic. Inquir. and Observ., No. 6. 7 Medic. Observ. and Inquir., 1, No. 19, p. 211. 8 In Richter's Chirurg. Biblioth., v. pp. 737, 739. 9 Physicians have likewise endeavoured to cure the croup by means of mercury; but they generally failed in the attempt, because this metal cannot produce (of itself), in the mucous membrane of the trachea, a change similar to that particular modification which this disease engenders. Sulphuret of calcium, which excites cough by impeding respiration, and especially the tincture of burnt sponge, act more homoeopathically in their special effects, and are consequently much more efficacious, particularly when administered in the smallest possible doses. 10 In Hufeland's Journal, xii. II. INTRODUCTION.9 95 able instances of which have been transmitted to us by J. Schegel,' J6rdens,' and J. M. Mfiller?' The cure of caries (not venereal) of another kind, which has likewise been effe cted by means of mercury by J. F. G. Neu' and J. D. Metzger,5 furnishes a fresh proof of the homocopathic curative virtue with which this substance is endowed. In perusing the works which have been published on the subject of medical electricity, it is surprising to see what analogy exists between the morbid symptoms sometimes produced by this agent, and the natural diseases which it has cured homccopathically in a durable manner. Innumerable are the authors who have observed that acceleration of the putlse is among the primary effects of positive electricity; but Sauvages,6 IDelas,7 and Barillon,8 have seen febrile parox~ysrns excited by electricity. The faculty it has of producing fiever is the cause to which we may attribute the circumstance of Ga-rdini,9 Wilkinson,'0 IHufeland's Journal, v. pp. 605, 610. 2 Ibid. x. II. Obs. Mced. Chirur. ii. cas. 10. Diss. Med. Pract. Goettingave, 1776. SAdversaria. P. II. sect. 4. SIn Bertholon de St. Lazare, Medicinisehe Electrisitiit, von Kihni. Leip. 1788, t. i. pp. 239, 240. 7Ibid. P. 232. 8Ibid. p. 233. Ibid. p. 232. 10Ibid. P. 251. 96 INTRODUCTION. Syme,1 and Wesley,2 curing tertian fever with it alone, and likewise the removal of quartan fevers by Zetzel3 and Willermoz.4 It is also known that electricity occasions a contraction of the muscles which resembles a convulsive movement. De Sans5 was even enabled to excite continued convulsions in the arm of a young girl as often as he pleased to make the experiment. It is by virtue of this power which electricity develops, that De Sans 6 and Franklin7 applied it successfully in convulsions, and that Theden cured with its aid a little girl, ten years of age, who had lost her speech and partially the use of her left arm, by lightning, and yet was subject to a constant involuntary movement of the arms and legs, accompanied by a spasmodic contraction of the fingers of the left hand. Electricity likewise produces a kind of sciatica, as observed by Jallobert9 and another:10 it has also cured this affection by similarity of effect (homceopathically), as confirmed by Hiort1 In Bertholon de St. Lazare, Medicinische Electrisitat, von Kiihn. Leip. 1788, t. i. pp. 250. 2 Ibid. p. 249. 3 Ibid. p. 52. 4 Ibid. p. 250. 5 Ibid. p. 274. 6 Ibid. 7 Recueil sur l'electr. nmdic. ii. p. 386. s Neue Bemerkungen und Erfahrungen, iii. 9 Experiences et Observations sur 1'electricite. '0 Philos. Trans. vol. 63. INTRODUCTION. 97 berg, Lovet, Arrigoni, Daboueix, Manduyt, Syme, and Wesley. Several physicians have cured a species of ophthalmia by electricity, that is to say, by means of the power which it possesses of exciting inflammation of the eyes, as observed by P. Dickson' and Bertholon.2 Finally, it has, in the hands of Fushel cured varices; and it owes this sanative virtue to the faculty which Jallobert3 ascribes to it of producing varicose tumours. Albers relates, that a warm bath at one hundred degrees of the thermometer of Fahrenheit, greatly reduced the burning heat of an acute fever in which the pulse beat one hundred and thirty per minute, and that it reduced the pulsations to one hundred and ten. Loffler fdund hot fomentations very useful in encephalitis occasioned by insolation or the action of the heat of stoves,4 and Callisen regards affusions of warm water on the head as the most efficacious of all remedies in cases of inflammation of the brain. If we deduct the cases in which the specific remedy for a disease of never varying character has been revealed to physicians of the ordinary school (not by their own investigation, but) by the empirical practice of the common people, wherewith they are SBertholon, Loc. cit., p. 466. 2 Ibid., ii. p. 296. 3 Ibid. SIn Hufeland's Journal, iii. p. 690. SAct. soc. med. Hafn. iv. p. 419. H 98 INTRODUCTION. enabled to effect a direct cure, as for instance, of the venereal disease, with mercury; of the morbid state resulting from contusions, with arnica; of marsh ague, with cinchona bark; of recent cases of itch, with flowers of sulphur, &c.-if we deduct these, we find, that without almost any exception, all the other treatment of the old school physician, in chronic diseases, consists in debilitating, teazing, and tormenting the already afflicted patient, to the aggravation of his disease and to his destruction, with a great display of dignified gravity on the part of the doctor, and at a ruinous expense to the patient. Blind experiment sometimes led them to a homceopathic mode of treatment,1 and yet they did not 1 Thus they imagined they could drive out the perspiration through the skin, which they believed to stagnate there after a chill, if they gave the patient to drink, during the cold stage of the catarrhal fever, an infusion of elder flowers, which is capable of removing such a fever, and curing the patient by its peculiar similarity of action (homceopathically), and this it does most promptly and effectually, without causing perspiration, if but a small quantity of this infusion, and nothing else, be taken. To hard, acute swellings, in which the excessive violence of the inflammation prevents their suppuration, and causes intolerable pains, they apply very warm poultices, frequently renewed, and behold! the inflammation and the pains diminish rapidly, while the abscess is rapidly formed, as is known by the yellowish shining elevation and the perceptible fluctuation. In this case they imagine that the hardness has been softened by the moisture of the poultice, whereas it is chiefly by the greater warmth of the poultice that the excess of inflammation has been homoeopathically subdued, and the rapid suppuration been enabled to take 100 INTRODUCTION. The solution we obtain of this question is of the utmost significance. It is, that these cures never were effected in any other manner than by means of medicines of homceopathic power, that is to say, capable of producing a morbid state similar to that sought to be cured; they were effected rapidly and permanently by medicines, the medical prescribers of which made use of them as it were by accident, and even in opposition to the doctrines of all previous systems and therapeutics (often without rightly knowing what they were doing and why they did it), and thus, against their will, they practically confirmed the necessity of the only therapeutic law consonant to nature, that of Homceopathy-a therapeutic law, which, despite the many facts and innumerable hints that pointed to it, no medical epoch hitherto has exerted itself to discover, blinded as they all have been by medical prejudices. For even the domestic practice of the non-medical classes of the community, endowed with proper observant faculties, has many times proved this mode of cure to be the surest, the most radical, and the least fallacious in practice. In recent cases of frost-bitten limbs, frozen sour crout is applied, or frictions of snow are used.' 1It is on such examples of domestic practice that Mr. M. Lux founds his so-called mode of cure by identicals and idem, which he calls Isopathy, which some eccentric minded persons have already adopted as the ne plus ultra of a healing art, without knowing how they can carry it out in practice. INTRODUCTION. 101 The experienced cook holds his hand, which he has scalded, at a certain distance from the fire, and does But if we examine these instances attentively, we find that they do not bear out these views. The purely physical powers differ in the nature of their action on the living organism, from those of a dynamic medicinal kind. Heat or cold of the air that surrounds us, or of the water, or of our food and drink, occasion (as heat and cold) of themselves no absolute injury to a healthy body; heat and cold are in their alternations essential to the maintenance of healthy life, consequently they are not of themselves medicine. Heat and cold, therefore, act as curative agents in affections of the body, not by virtue of their essential nature (not, therefore, as heat and cold per se, not as things hurtful in themselves, as are the drugs, rhubarb, china, &c., even in the smallest doses), but only by virtue of their greater or smaller quantity, that is, according to their degrees of temperature, just as (to take an example from mere physical powers) a great weight of lead will bruise my hand painfully, not by virtue of its essential nature as lead, for a thin plate of lead would not bruise me, but in consequence of its quantity and massive weight. If, then, cold or heat be serviceable in bodily ailments like frostbites or burns, they are so solely on account of their degree of temperature, just as they only inflict injury on the healthy body by their extreme degrees of temperature. Thus we find in these examples of successful domestic practice, that it is not the prolonged application of the degree of cold in which the limb was frozen that restores it isopathically (it would thereby be rendered quite lifeless and dead), but a degree of cold that only approximates to that (homaoopathy), and which gradually rises to a comfortable temperature, as frozen sour crout laid upon the frostbitten hand, in the temperature of the room, soon melts, gradually growing warmer from 320 or 33~ (Fahr.) to the temperature of the room, supposing that to be only 55~, and thus the limb is recovered 102 INTRODUCTION. not heed the increase of pain that takes place at first, as he knows from experience that he can thereby in by physical homeopathy. In like manner, a hand scalded with boiling water would not be isopathically cured by the application of boiling water, but only by a somewhat lower temperature, as, for example, by holding it in a vessel containing a fluid heated to 1600, which becomes every minute less hot, and finally descends to the temperature of the room, whereupon the scalded part is restored by homoeopathy. Water in the act of freezing cannot isopathically draw out the frost from potatoes and apples, but this is effected by water only near the freezing point. So, to give another example from physical action, the injury resulting from a blow on the forehead with a hard substance (a painful tumour) is soon diminished in pain and swelling by pressing on the spot for a considerable time with the ball of the thumb, strongly at first, and then gradually less forcibly, homoeopathically, but not by an equally hard blow with an equally hard body, which would increase the evil isopathically. The examples of cures by isopathy given in the book alluded to-muscular contractions in human beings, and spinal paralysis in a dog, which had been caused by a chill, being rapidly cured by cold bathing-these events are falsely explained by isopathy. What are called sufferings from a chill, are only nominally connected with cold, and often arise, in the bodies of those predisposed to them, even from a draught of wind which was not at all cold. Moreover, the manifold effects of a cold bath on the living organism, in health and in disease, cannot be reduced to such a simple formula as to warrant the construction of a system of such pretensions! That serpents' bites, as is there stated, are most certainly cured by portions of the serpents, must remain a mere fable of a former age, until such an improbable assertion is authenticated by indubitable observation and experience, which it certainly never will be. That, in fine, the saliva of a mad dog given to a patient labouring under INTRODUCTION. 103 a very short time, often in a few minutes, convert the burnt part into healthy painless skin.' Other intelligent non-medical persons, as, for example, the manufacturers of lackered-ware, apply to a part scalded with the hot varnish a similar substance, that causes of itself a burning sensation, such as strong, heated spirits of wine,2 or oil of turhydrophobia (in Russia), is said to have cured him-that "is said " would not seduce any conscientious physician to imitate such a hazardous experiment, to construct a so-called isopathic system, so dangerous, and so highly improbable in its extended application, as has been done (not by the modest author of the pamphlet entitled " The Isopathy of Contagions, Leipzic: Kollmann," but) by its eccentric supporters, especially Dr. Gross (v. Ally. hom. Ztg. ii. p. 72), who vaunts this isopathy (cequalia cequalibus) as the only proper therapeutic rule, and sees nothing in the similia similibus but an indifferent substitute for it; ungratefully enough, as he is entirely indebted to the similia similibus for all his fame and fortune. 1 So also Fernelius (Therap, lib. vi. cap. 20) considers that the best cure for a burnt part is to bring it near the fire, whereby the pain is removed. John Hunter (On the Blood, Inflammation, 'c. p. 218) mentions the great injury that results from treating burns with cold water, and gives a decided preference to approaching them to the fire,-guided in this, not by the traditional medical doctrines which (contraria contrariis) prescribe cooling things for inflammation, but by experience, which teaches that a similar application of heat (similia similibus) is the most salutary. 2 Sydenham (Opera, p. 271 [edit. Syd. Soc. p. 601]) says that spirits of wine, repeatedly applied, is preferable to all other remedies in burns. Benjamin Bell, too (System of Surgery, third. edit. 1789), acknowledges that experience shows that homocopathic remedies only are efficacious. He says: "One of the best applications to 104 INTRODUCTION. pentine,' and by that means cure themselves in the course of a few hours, whereas cooling salves, as they are every burn of this kind is strong brandy or any other ardent spirit; it serves to induce a momentary additional pain (see below, ~ clvii.), but this soon subsides, and is succeeded by an agreeable soothing sensation. It proves most effectual when the parts can be kept immersed in it; but where this cannot be done, they should be kept constantly moist with pieces of old linen soaked in spirits." To this I may add, that warm, and indeed very warm, alcohol is much more rapidly and much more certainly eficacious, for it is much more homceopathic than when not heated. And all experience confirms this in a most astonishing manner. 1 Edward Kentish, having to treat the workers in coal pits, who were so often dreadfully burnt by the explosion of fire-damp, applied heated oil of turpentine, or alcohol, as the best remedies in the most extensive and severest burns. (Second Essay on Burns. London, 1798.) No treatment can be more homoeopathic than this, nor is any more efficacious. The estimable and experienced Heister (Institut. Chirury. tom i. p. 33) confirms this from his own observation, and extols the application of turpentine oil, of alcohol, and of very hot poultices, for this end, as hot as ever they can be borne. But the amazing superiority of the application to burns of these remedies, which possess the power of exciting burning sensation and heat (and are consequently homceopathic), over palliative refrigerent remedies, is most incontestibly shewn by pure experimentation, in which the two opposite methods of treatment are employed for the sake of comparison, in burns of similar intensity, in the same body. Thus, John Bell (in Kihn's phys. med. Jour. Leipzic, 1801, Jun. p. 428), in the case of a lady who had scalded both arms, caused one to be covered with oil of turpentine, and made her plunge the other into cold water. In half an hour the first arm was well, but the other continued to be painful for six hours longer; when it was withdrawn one instant from the water, she experienced much INTRODUCTION. 105 well aware, would not effect a cure in as many months, and cold water' would but make matters worse. The old experienced reaper, although he may not be in the habit of drinking brandy, will not touch cold water (contraria contrariis) when he has worked greater pain in it, and it required a much longer time than the first bor its cure. John Anderson (Kentish, op. cit. p. 43) treated in a similar manner a lady who had scalded herself with boiling grease. "The face, which was very red and scalded, and excessively painful, was, a few minutes after the accident, covered with oil of turpentine; her arm she had, of her own accord, plunged into cold water, with which she desired to treat it for some hours. In the course of seven hours her face looked much better, and the pain was relieved. She had frequently renewed the cold water for the arm, but whenever she withdrew it she complained of much pain, and in truth the inflammation in it had much increased. The following morning I found that she had had, during the night, great pain in the arm; the inflammation had extended above the elbow; several large blisters had burst, and thick eschars had formed on the arm and hand; a warm poultice was then applied. The face was completely free from pain, but emollient applications had to be used for the arm for a fortnight longer, before it was cured." Who can fail to perceive in this instance the infinite superiority of the (homoeopathic) treatment by means of remedies of similar action, over the wretched treatment by opposites (contraria contrariis) of the antiquated ordinary school of medicine! 1 John Hunter (loc. cit.) is not singular in asserting the great injury done by treating burns with cold water. W. Fabricius of Hilden, also (De Combustionibus libellus. Basil, 1607, cap. 5, p. 11), alleges that cold applications are highly injurious, and productive of the most serious consequences; inflammation, suppuration, and sometimes mortification, are caused by them. 106 INTRODUCTION. himself into a violent feverish state in the heat of the sun-he knows the danger of such a proceedingbut he takes a small quantity of a heating liquor, a mouthful of brandy; experience, the teacher of truth, has convinced him of the great superiority and efficacy of this homceopathic procedure, whereby his heat and fatigue are speedily removed.1 There have ever been occasionally physicians, who vaguely surmised that medicines cure analogous morbid states by the power they possess of producing analogous morbid symptoms.2 Thus the author of the book: E 2 TO"Tv TV X r a'v6ew7rov," which is among the writings attributed to Hippocrates, has the following remarkable words: voEUvT&ov uy:I/vovIOTaI,--i- TO ~EE-~iv E7rSTOgQa TCU.Later physicians have also felt and expressed the truth of the homoeopathic method of cure. Thus, for 1 Zimmermann (Ueber die Erfahrung, ii. p. 318) informs us that the inhabitants of hot countries act in the same manner, with the best results, and that, after being very much heated, they swallow a small quantity of some spirituous liquor. 2 I do not bring forward the following passages from authors who had a presentiment of homceopathy, as proofs in support of this doctrine, which is firmly established on its own merits, but in order to avoid the imputation of having suppressed these foreshadowings with the view of securing for myself the merit of the priority of the idea. ' Basil. Froben. 1538, p. 72. INTRODUCTION. 107 instance, Boulduc1 perceived that the purgative property of rhubarb was the cause of its power to remove diarrhoea. Detharding2 guessed that the infusion of senna leaves relieved colic in adults, by virtue of its analogous action in causing colic in healthy persons. Bertholon3 confesses that in diseases electricity diminishes and removes pain very similar to that which itself produces. Thoury4 testifies that positive electricity possesses the power of quickening the pulse, but when that is already morbidly accelerated, it diminishes its frequency. Von St6rck5 makes the following suggestion: "If stramonium disorders the mind and produces mania in healthy persons, ought we not to try if in cases of insanity it cannot restore reason, by producing a revolution in the ideas?" But a Danish army-physician, of the name of Stahl,6 has expressed his conviction on this point in the most unequivocal terms. "The rule generally acted on in medicine," says he, "to treat by means of oppositely acting remedies (contraria contrariis) is quite false, 1 Memoires de 1'Academie Royale, 1710. 2 Eph. Nat. Cur., cent. x. obs. 76. 3 Medicin. Electrisitit, ii. pp. 15 and 282. 4 Memoire lu 1'Academie de Caen. 5 Lebell. de Stram. p. 8. G In Jo. Hammelii Commentatio de Arthritide tam tartarea, quam scorbutica, seu podagra ct scorbuto. Budingae, 1738, viii. pp. 40-42. 108 INTRODUCTION. and the reverse of what ought to be; I am, on the contrary, convinced that diseases will yield to and be cured by remedies that produce a similar affection (similia similibus),-burns, by exposure to the fire, frost-bitten limbs, by the application of snow and the coldest water, inflammation and bruises, by distilled spirits; and in like manner I have treated a tendency to acidity of the stomach, by a very small dose of sulphuric acid, with the most successful result, in cases where a number of absorbent remedies had been fruitlessly employed." How near was the great truth sometimes of being apprehended! But it was dismissed with a mere passing thought, and thus the indispensable change of the antiquated medical treatment of disease, of the improper therapeutic system hitherto in vogue, into a real, true and certain healing art, remained to be accomplished in our own times. 109 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ I. The physician's high and only mission is to restore the sick to health, to cure, as it is termed.' ~ II. The perfection of a cure is rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of the health, or removal and annihilation of the disease in its whole extent, in the shortest, safest and most harmless way, on easily comprehensible principles. I His mission is not, however, to construct so-called systems, by interweaving empty ideas and hypotheses concerning the internal vital processes, and consequently the actual mode in which diseases are produced in the interior of the organism (whereon so many physicians have hitherto ambitiously wasted their talents and their time); nor is it to attempt to give countless explanations regarding the phenomena in diseases and their proximate cause (which must ever remain concealed), wrapped in unintelligible words and an inflated abstract mode of expression, which should 110 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ III. If the physician clearly perceives what is to be cured in diseases, that is to say, in every individual case of disease (knowledge of disease, indication), if he clearly perceives what is curative in medicines, that is to say, in each individual medicine (knowledge of medicinal powers), and if he knows how to apply, according to clearly defined principles, what is curative in medicines, to what he has discovered to be undoubtedly morbid in the patient, so that recovery must ensue-to apply it, as well in respect to the suitability of the medicine most adapted from its mode of action to the case before him (choice of the remedy, the medicine indicated), as also in respect to the exact mode of preparation and quantity of it required (proper dose), and to the proper period for repeating the dose:-if, finally, he knows the obstacles to recovery in each case, and is aware how to remove them, so that the restoration may be permanent: then he understands how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he is a true practitioner of the healing art. sound very learned, in order to amaze the ignorant-whilst sick humanity sighs in vain for aid. Of such learned reveries (to which the name of theoretic medicine is given, and for which peculiar professorships are instituted) we have had quite enough, and it is now high time that all who call themselves physicians should at length cease to deceive suffering mankind with mere talk, and begin now, instead, for once to act, that is, really to aid and to cure. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 111 ~IV. He is likewise a preserver of health, if he knows the things that derange health and cause disease, and how to remove them from persons in health. ~V. Useful to the physician in assisting him to cure, are the particulars of the most probable exciting cause of the acute disease, as also the most significant points in the whole history of the chronic disease, to enable him to discover its fundamental cause, which generally depends on a chronic miasm. In these investigations, the apparent physical constitution of the patient (especially when the disease is chronic), his moral and intellectual character, his occupation, mode of living and habits, his social and domestic relations, his age, sexual function, &c., are to be taken into consideration. ~Vi. The unprejudiced observer-well aware of the nullity of transcendental speculations, which can receive no confirmation from experience--let his powers of penetration be ever so great, takes note of nothing in every individual disease, except the changes in the health of the body and of the mind (morbid phenomena, accidents, symptoms,) which can be perceived externally by means of the senses, that is to say, he notices only the deviations from the former healthy state of the now diseased individual, which 112 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. are felt by the patient himself, remarked by those around him, and observed by the physician. All these perceptible signs represent the disease in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable portrait of the disease.1 1 I know not, therefore, how it was possible for physicians at the sick-bed to allow themselves to suppose, that without most carefully attending to the symptoms, and being guided by them in the treatment, they ought to seek and could discover, only in the hidden and unknown interior, what there was to be cured in the disease, under the arrogant and ludicrous pretext that they could, without paying much attention to the symptoms, discover the alteration that had occurred in the invisible interior, and set it to rights with (unknown!) medicines, and that such a procedure as this could alone be called radical and rational treatment. Is not, then, that which is cognizable by the senses in diseases through the phenomena it displays, the disease itself in the eyes of the physician, since he never can see the spiritual being that produces the disease, the vital force? nor is it necessary that he should see it, but only that he should ascertain its morbid actions, in order that he may thereby be enabled to cure the disease. What else will the old school search for in the hidden interior of the organism, as a prima causi mnorbi, whilst they reject as an object of cure, and proudly despise, the sensible and manifest representation of the disease, the symptoms, that so plainly address themselves to us? What else do they wish to cure in diseases, but these?! * "1 The physician whose researches are directed towards the hidden relations in the interior of the organism, may daily err; but the homoeopathist who grasps with requisite carefulness the whole group of symptoms, possesses a sure guide, and if he succeed in removing the whole group of symptoms, he has likewise most assuredly destroyed the internal, hidden cause of the disease." (RAU, op. cit. p. 103). ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 113 ~ VII. Now, as in a disease, from which no manifest exciting or maintaining cause (causa occasionalis) is to be removed,' we can perceive nothing but the morbid symptoms, it must (regard being had to the possibility of a miasm, and attention paid to the accessory circumstances, ~ v) be the symptoms alone, by which the disease demands and points to the remedy suited to relieve it-and, moreover, the totality of these its symptoms, of this outwardly reflected picture of the internal essence of the disease, that is, of the affection of the vital force, must be the principal, or the sole means, whereby the disease can make known what remedy it requires-the only thing that can determine the choice of the most appropriate curative agent-and thus, in a word, the totality2 of the SIt is not necessary to say that every intelligent physician would at once remove this where it exists; the indisposition thereupon generally ceases spontaneously. He will remove from the room strong smelling flowers, which have a tendency to cause syncope and hysterical sufferings; extract from the cornea the foreign body that excites inflammation of the eye; loosen the over-tight bandage on a wounded limb, and apply a more suitable one; lay bare, and put a ligature on the wounded artery that produces fainting; endeavour to promote the expulsion by vomiting of belladonna berries and the like, that may have been swallowed; extract foreign substances that may have got into the orifices of the body (the nose, gullet, ears, urethra, rectum, vagina); crush the vesical calculus; open the imperforate anus of the new born infant, &c. 2 In all times, the old school physicians, not knowing how else to I 114 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. symptoms must be the principal, the sole thing, the physician has to take note of in every case of disease, and to remove by means of his art, in order to cure and transform it into health. ~ VIII. It is not conceivable, nor can it be proved by any experience in the world, that, after removal of all the morbid symptoms of the disease, and of the entire collection of the perceptible morbid phenomena, there should or could remain any thing else besides health, or that the morbid alterations in the interior could remain uneradicated.' give relief, have sought to combat, and if possible to suppress, by medicines, here and there, a single symptom from among a number, in diseases-a one-sided procedure, which, under the name of symptomatic treatment, has justly excited universal contempt, because by it, not only was nothing gained, but much harm was effected. A single one of the symptoms present is no more the disease itself than a single foot is the man himself. This procedure was so much the more reprehensible, that such a single symptom was only treated by an antagonistic remedy (therefore only in an enantiopathic and palliative manner), whereby, after a slight alleviation, it was subsequently only rendered all the worse. SWhen a patient has been cured of his disease by a true physician, in such a manner that no trace of the disease, no morbid symptom, remains, and all the signs of health have permanently returned, how can any one, without offering an insult to common sense, affirm that in such an individual the whole disease still remains bodily in the interior? And yet the chief of the old school, Hufeland, asserts this in the following words: "Homceopathy can ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 115 ~ IX. In the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital force (autocracy), the dynamis that animates the material body (organism) rules with unbounded sway, and retains all the parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious, vital operation, with respect to both sensations and functions, so that our in-dwelling, reason-gifted mind can employ this living, healthy machine for the higher purposes of our existence. ~X. The material organism, without the vital force, is capable of no sensation, no function, no self-preservation;' it derives all sensation and performs all the remove the symptoms, but the disease remains." (Vide Homiopathie, p. 27, c. 19.) This he maintains, partly from mortification at the progress made by homoeopathy to the benefit of mankind, partly because he still holds thoroughly material notions respecting disease, which he is still unable to regard as a state of being of the organism, wherein it is dynamically altered by the morbidly deranged vital force, but he views the disease as a something material, which, after the cure is completed, may still remain lurking in some corner in the interior of the body, in order, some day during the most vigorous health, to burst forth, at its pleasure, with its material presence! So dreadful is still the blindness of the old school pathology! No wonder that it could only produce a system of therapeutics, which is solely occupied with scouring out the poor patient. 1 It is dead, and now only subject to the power of the external physical world; it decays, and is again resolved into its chemical constituents. S2 116 O1RGANON OF MEDICINE. functions of life solely by means of the immaterial being (the vital force) which animates the material organism in health and in disease. ~ XI. When a person falls ill, it is only this spiritual, self-acting (automatic) vital force, every where present in his organism, that is primarily deranged by the dynamic influence upon it of a morbific agent inimical to life; it is only the vital force, deranged to such an abnormal state, that can furnish the organism with its disagreeable sensations, and incline it to the irregular functions, which we call disease; for, as a power invisible in itself, and only cognizable by its actions in the organism, its morbid derangement only makes itself known, by the expression of disease in the sensations and functions of those parts of the organism exposed to the senses of the observer and physician, that is, by morbid symptoms, and in no other way can it make itself known. ~ XII. It is the morbidly affected vital force alone that produces diseases,1 so that the morbid phenomena 1 Hoz the vital force causes the organism to display morbid phenomena, that is, howz it produces disease, it would be of no practical utility to the physician to know, and therefore it will forever remain concealed from him; only what it is necessary for him to know of the disease, and what is fully sufficient for enabling him to cure it, has the Lord of life revealed to his senses. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 117 perceptible to our senses express at the same time all the internal change, that is, the morbid derangement of the internal dynamis, in a word, they reveal the whole disease; consequently, also, the disappearance by treatment of all the morbid phenomena, and of all the morbid alterations that differ from the healthy vital operations, as certainly occasions, and necessarily implies, the restoration of the integrity of the vital force, and, therefore, the recovered health of the whole organism. ~ XIII. Therefore disease (that does not come within the province of manual surgery) considered, as it is by the allopathists, as a thing separate from the living whole, from the organism and its vivifying vital force, and hidden in the interior, be it of ever so subtile a character, is an absurdity, that could only be imagined by minds of a material stamp, and has for thousands of years given to the prevailing system of medicine all those pernicious impulses that have made it a truly mischievous [non-healing] art. ~ XIV. There is, in the interior of man, nothing morbid that is curable, and no invisible morbid alteration that is curable, which does not make itself known to the accurately observing physician, by means of morbid signs and symptoms-an arrangement in perfect 118 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. conformity with the infinite goodness of the all-wise Preserver of human life. ~ xv. The affection of the morbidly deranged, spiritual dynamis (vital force) that animates our body, in the invisible interior, and the sum total of the outwardly cognizable symptoms produced by it in the organism and representing the existing malady, constitute a whole; they are one and the same. The organism is indeed the material machine to the life, but it is not conceivable without the animation imparted to it by the instinctively perceiving and regulating vital force (just as the vital force is not conceivable without the organism), consequently the two together constitute a unity, although in thought our mind separates this unity into two distinct ideas, for the sake of facilitating the apprehension of it. ~ XVI. Our vital force, as a spiritual dynamis, cannot be attacked and affected by injurious operations on the healthy organism from external inimical influences, that disturb the harmonious play of life, otherwise than in a spiritual (dynamic) manner, and in like manner, all such morbid derangements (the diseases) cannot be removed from it by the physician, in any other way, than by the spiritual (dynamic, virtual) alterative powers of the suitable medicines acting upon our spiritual vital force, which per ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 119 ceives them through the medium of the sentient faculty of the nerves every where present in the organism, so that it is only by their dynamic action on the vital force, that curative agents are able to re-establish, and do actually re-establish, health and vital harmony, after the changes in the health of the patient cognizable by our senses (the sum total of the symptoms) had revealed the disease to the carefully observing and investigating physician, as fully as was requisite, in order to enable him to cure it. ~ XVII. Now, as in the cure effected by the removal of the whole of the perceptible signs and symptoms of the disease, the internal alteration of the vital force on which the disease depends-consequently the sum total of the disease-is at the same time removed,' it 1 A warning dream, a superstitious fancy, or a solemn prediction that death would occur at a certain day or at a certain hour, has not unfrequently produced all the signs of commencing and increasing disease, of approaching death, and death itself, at the hour announced, which could not happen without the simultaneous production of the inward change (corresponding to the state observed externally); and hence in such cases, from the same cause, all the morbid signs indicative of approaching death have frequently been dissipated by some cunning deception, or persuasion to a belief in the contrary, and health suddenly restored, which could not have happened without the removal, by means of this moral curative agent, of the internal and external morbid change that threatened death. 120 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. follows, that the physician has only to remove the whole of the symptoms, in order, at the same time, to abrogate and to annihilate the internal change, that is, the morbid derangement of the vital force-consequently the sum total of the disease, the disease itself. But the annihilated disease is restored health, the highest, the sole aim of the physician who knows the true object of his mission, which consists not in learned-sounding prating, but in giving aid to the sick. ~ XVIII. From this indubitable truth, that besides the collective symptoms, nothing can be discovered in any way, in diseases, wherewith they could express their need of aid, it undeniably follows, that the sum of all the symptoms in each individual case of disease must be the sole indication, the sole guide to direct us in the choice of a curative remedy. 1 It is only thus that God, the Preserver of mankind, could reveal His wisdom and goodness in reference to the cure of the diseases to which man is liable here below, by shewing to the physician what he had to remove in diseases, in order to annihilate them, and re-establish health. But what would we think of His wisdom and goodness, if He had shrouded in mysterious obscurity that which was to be cured in diseases (as is asserted by the prevailing school of medicine, which affects to possess a supernatural insight into the inner nature of things), and shut it up in the hidden interior, and thus rendered it impossible for man to know the malady accurately, consequently impossible for him to cure it? ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 121 ~ XIX. Now, as diseases are nothing more than alterations in the health of the healthy individual, which express themselves by morbid signs, and the cure is also only possible by a change of the health of the diseased individual to the healthy condition, it is very evident, that medicines could never cure diseases, if they did not possess the power of altering man's health, which consists in sensations and functions; indeed, that their curative power must be owing solely to this power they possess of altering man's health. ~ XX. This spiritual power capable of altering man's health (and hence of curing diseases) which lies hid in the inner nature of medicines, is not of itself discoverable by us, in any way, by a mere effort of reason; it is only by experience of the phenomena it displays when acting on the health of man that it can be learned, and that distinctly. ~ XXI. Now, as the curative principle in medicines is not in itself perceptible, as cannot be denied, and in pure experiments with medicines, conducted by the most accurate observers, nothing can be observed that can constitute them medicines or curative agents, except that power of causing distinct alterations in the health of the human body, and particularly in that of ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 123 whether the morbid symptoms are most readily, certainly and permanently removed and changed into health by similar or opposite medicinal symptoms,') has a tendency to produce similar or opposite symptoms. ~ XXIII. All pure experience, however, and all accurate research, convince us, that persisting symptoms of disease are so far from being removed and annihilated 1 The other possible mode of employing medicines for diseases, besides these two (the allopathic method), in which medicines are given, whose symptoms have no direct pathological relation to the morbid state, consequently are neither similar nor opposite, but quite heterogeneous to the symptoms of the disease, is, as I have shewn above, in the Introduction (Review of the medication, allopathy, and palliative treatment, that have prevailed to the present time in the old school of medicine), merely an imlpefect and in'urious imitation of the highly imperfect efforts qof the irrational, merely instinctive vital force, which, when made ill by injurious agencies, strives to save itself at whatever sacrifce, by the production and continuance of morbid states in the organism-an imitation, consequently, of the crude vital force, which was placed in our organism, and so constituted as to preserve our life in health, in the most beautiful harmony; but when deranged by disease, to admit of being again changed to health (homaeopathically) by the intelligent physician, but not to cure itself, for which the little power it possesses is so far from being a pattern to be copied, that all the changes and symptoms it produces in the (morbidly deranged) organism, are just the disease itself. But this injudicious system of medication of the old school of medicine can no more be passed by unnoticed, than can history omit to record the thoausands of years of oppression to which mankind have been subjected under the irrational, despotic governments. 124 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. by opposite symptoms of medicines, (as in the antipathic, enantiopathic, or palliative method,) that on the contrary, after transient, apparent alleviation, they break forth again, only with increased intensity, and become manifestly aggravated (~ Iviii-lxii and Ixix). ~ XXIV. There remains, therefore, no other mode of employing medicines in diseases that promises to be of service, than the homoeopathic, by the instrumentality of which a medicine must be sought for the collective symptoms of the case of disease, which among all the medicines (whose pathogenetic effects are known from having been tested in healthy individuals), has the power and the tendency to produce an artificial morbid state, most similar to that of the case of disease in question. ~ XXV. Now, however, in all careful researches, pure experience,1 the only, the infallible oracle of medicine, 1I do not mean that sort of experience of which the ordinary practitioners of the old school boast, after they have for years worked away with a heap of complicated prescriptions at a number of diseases which they never carefully investigated, but which, faithful to the tenets of their school, they considered as already described in systematic pathology, and dreamed that they could perceive in them some imaginary morbific matter, or ascribed to them some other hypothetical, internal abnormal circumstance. They always saw something in them, but knew not what it was they saw, and they got results, ORGANON OF MEDICINE.1 312 5 teaches us, that actually that medicine, which, in its action on the healthy human body, has demonstrated its power of producing the greatest number of symptoms similar to those observable in the case of disease under treatment, does also, in doses of suitable potency and attenuation, rapidly, radically and permanently remove- the collective symptoms of this morbid state, that is (~ vi-xvi), the whole disease present, and change it into health, and that all medicines cure those diseases whose symptoms most nearly resemble their own, without exception, and leave none of them uncured. ~ XXVI. This depends on the following honccopat1hic law of nature, some -vague presenltimenit of which has indeed occasionally been entertained, but which, until now, has not been acknowledged, and on which depends every real cure that has ever taken place: Aweaker dynaic affe~ction is permanently extbinquislied in the livin2g oi~qanismn by a stronger one, if the latter (whilst dý,/Jerinig in kind) is similar to the formner in its mzanifestations.1 from their comnplex forces acting on an unknown object, that no human being, but only a God, could have unriddled-results from which nothing can be learned, no expeienegind Ifyeas experience of this sort is like fifty years of looking into a, kaleidoscope filled with unknown gaudy obj ects, a~nd perpetually turniing round; thousands of ever-changing figures, and no clue gainedl to enable us to determine what appearance future changes will assumie! I Thus are cured both physical affections and moral maladies. 126 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ XXVII. The curative power of medicines, therefore, depends on their symptoms, similar to the disease but superior to it in strength (~ xii-xxvi), so that each individual case of disease is most certainly, radically, rapidly and permanently annihilated and destroyed, only by a How is it that in the early dawn the brilliant Jupiter vanishes from the gaze of the beholder? By a stronger very similar power acting on his optic nerve, the brightness of approaching day!-In situations replete with fcetid odours, wherewith is it usual to soothe effectually the offended olfactory nerves? With snuff, that affects the sense of smell in a similar, but stronger manner! No music, no sugared cake, which act on the nerves of other senses, can cure this nausea caused by the disgusting odour.-How does the warrior cunningly banish the piteous cries of him who runs the gauntlet, from the ears of the compassionate bystanders? By the shrill notes of the fife, commingled with the roll of the noisy drum! And the distant roar of the enemy's cannon, that inspires his army with fear? By the mimic thunder of the big drum! For neither the one nor the other would the distribution of a brilliant piece of uniform, nor a reprimand to the regiment suffice.-In like manner, mourning and sorrow will be effaced from the mind, by the account of another and still greater cause for sorrow happening to another, even though it be a mere fiction. The injurious consequences of too great joy, will be removed by drinking coffee, which produces an excessively joyous state of mind.-Nations, like the Germans, who have for centuries been gradually sinking deeper and deeper in soulless apathy and degrading serfdom, must first be trodden still deeper in the dust by the Western Conqueror, until their situation became intolerable; their mean opinion of themselves was thereby overstrained and removed; they again became alive to their dignity as men, and then, for the first time, they raised their heads as Germans. 128 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. but, on account of the shorter duration of the action of the medicinal potency that now morbidly affects it, the vital force soon overcomes this, and as it was in the first instance relieved from the material morbid affection, so it is now at last freed from the artificial (the medicinal) one, and hence is enabled again to carry on healthily the vital operations of the organism.2 This highly probable explanation of the process rests on the following axioms. 1 The short duration of the action of the potencies that excite artificial diseases, which we term medicines, makes it possible, that, although they are at the same time stronger than the natural disease, they can yet be much more easily overcome by the vital force, than can the weaker natural diseases, which, solely in consequence of the longer, generally life-long, duration of their action (psora, syphilis, sycosis), can never be vanquished and extinguished by it alone, until the physician affects the vital force in a stronger manner by a potency that produces a disease very similar, but stronger, to wit, a homceopathic medicine, which, when given (or smelt), is, as it were, forced upon the unconscious, instinctive vital force, and substituted in the place of the former natural morbid affection, by which means the vital force then remains merely medicinally ill, but only for a short time, because the action of the medicine (the time in which the medicinal disease excited by it runs its course) does not last long. The cures of diseases of many years' duration (~ xlvi), by the occurrence of small-pox and measles (both of which run a course of only a few weeks), are processes of a similar character. 2 [Some years later, Hahnemann thought fit to offer a different explanation of the mode in which the homceopathic remedy effects the cure of a disease, which would have probably been the one he would have adopted, had he lived to publish another edition of this work, and which I think it right to insert in this place, not because the ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 129~ ~ XXX. The human body appears to admuit, of being mnuch more powerfully affected in its health by medicines (atybecause we have the reoul'ttion of the (lose ini our own power), than by natural mnorbific irritations -for natural diseases are cured and overcom-ie by suitable medicines. truth of the grand therapeutic axiom we owe to his genius, can be at. all affected by the validity of his explanation of it, but in order thlat the reader may have the very latest ideas of the illustrious founder of homocopathy on the subject. 41It is undeniable," says hie, " that our vital force is unable, without the assistance of true curative agents, ach~ninistered by human skill, to combat even inconsiderable acute diseases (if eveni it do not succumb to them), and to re-establish a sort of hieal th, without, sacrificing- a portion (often a large portion) of the fluid and solid parts of the organism, as I have elsewhere (vide antea, introduction, p. 28) shewn. How it affects this, will remain forever unknown to us; so much, however, is certain, that it cannot overcome even these diseases in a direct manner, nor without such sacrifices. The chironic. diseases of miasmatic origin, it can~not cure by itself, ev-en with such losses, and restore real health. B~ut equally certain is it, that whenl, by the true (homccopathie) healing art, guided by humian wisdom-i, it is put in a position to overpower and to subdue (to cure) diseases with which it is attacked, as well those of an acute as those of a. chronic miasmatic character, directly and without such sacrifices, without loss to the organism and to life, it is always the vital force that conquers, just as the native army which drives the enemny out of the country must be c-alled the conqueror, although it was assisted by foreign auxiliary troops. It is the organic vital force of our bodies which itself cures natural diseases of all kinds, in a direct manner and wvithout suchi sacrifices, whenever, by mneans, of the K. 130 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ XXXI. The inimical potencies, partly psychical, partly physical, to which our terrestrial existence is exposed, which are termed morbid noxious agents, do not proper (homoaopathic) medicines, it is placed in a position to conquer, which indeed it never could do without the auxiliary power, without this aid; for our organic vital force, by itself, only suffices to preserve the vital operations in their good order as long as the individual is not morbidly deranged by the inimical influence of morbific potencies. "By itself, it is not a match for the latter; it opposes them with a power scarcely equal to that which the inimical influence exerts upon it, and that with various indications of suffering on its own part (which we term symptoms of disease), but by its own power it could never overcome the chronic-disease enemy, as it cannot conquer even acute diseases without considerable loss of portions of the organism, if it were to remain without assistance from without, by means of real remedial aid, to furnish which, the Preserver of human life has commissioned the intelligent physician. " With a scarcely equal opposing power, I repeat, the vital force advances against the hostile disease, and yet no enemy can be overcome, except by a superior power. " The homceopathic medicine alone can supply the vital principle with this superior power. " Of itself, this principle that animates us, this vital force, merely organic, only designed for maintaining undisturbed health, opposes to the advancing hostile disease, only a weak resistance, and as the disease progresses and increases in intensity, a greater resistance, but (at best) one that is only equal to the hostile attack, in delicate patients not even equal, often only weaker; for offering an overpowering, an unhurtful opposition, it is not capable, not intended, not created. " But if, by means of the action upon it by homoeopathic medi ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 131 possess the power of morbidly deranging the health of man unconditionally;' but we are made ill by them only when our organism is sufficiently discines, we physicians can represent and oppose to this instinctive vital force, its enemy the disease, as it were, increased-however little increased-and if in this manner we magnify to the perception of the vital principle, the picture of its enemy the disease, by homceopathic medicines that produce an imitation of the original disease of illusive resemblance to it, we thereby, by degrees, cause and compel this instinctive vital force, gradually to increase its energy, and to go on always increasing it more and more, until at length it becomes much stronger than the original disease was, so that it can again become the autocrat in its own organism, can again take the reins, and direct the organism on the way to health, whilst in the mean time, the apparent increase of the disease, produced by the homoeopathic medicines, disappears spontaneously, whereon we, witnessing the re-established preponderance of the vital power, that is to say, the re-established health, cease to administer these remedies. "Incredibly great is the fund of the spiritual vital principle imparted to man by the infinitely benevolent Creator, if we physicians did but know how to keep it right in days of health by a properly regulated wholesome regimen, and in diseases to summon it forth, and stimulate it up to the proper mark by pure homoeopathic treatment." (Die chronischen Krankeiten, second edition, Pt. IV. p. iv. Diisseldorf, 1838.)] 1 When I call disease a derangement of man's state of health, I am far from wishing thereby to give a hyperphysical explanation of the internal nature of diseases generally, or of any case of disease in particular. It is only intended by this expression to intimate, what it can be proved diseases are not and cannot be, that they are not mechanical or chemical alterations of the material substance of the body, and not dependent on a material morbific principle-but that they are merely spiritual dynamic derangements of the life. K2 132 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. posed and susceptible to the attack of the morbific cause that may be present, and to be altered in its health, deranged and made to undergo abnormal sensations and functions-hence they do not produce disease in every one, nor at all times. ~ XXXII. But it is quite otherwise with the artificial morbific potencies, which we term medicines. Every real medicine, namely, acts at all times, under all circumstances, on every living human being, and produces in him the symptoms peculiar to it (distinctly perceptible, if the dose be large enough), so that, evidently, every living human organism is liable to be affected, and, as it were, inoculated with the medicinal disease at any time, and absolutely (unconditionally), which, as before said, is by no means the case with the natural diseases. ~ XXXIII. In accordance with this fact, it is undeniably shewn by all experience,' that the living human organism is A striking fact in corroboration of this is, that previously to the year 1801, when the smooth scarlatina of Sydenham still prevailed epidemically among children, and attacked, without exception, all children whc had escaped it in a former epidemic; in a similar epidemic whi, h I witnessed in Konigslutter, on the contrary, all the children who took in time a very small dose of belladonna, remained unaffected by this highly infectious infantile disease. If medicines can protect from a disease that is raging around, they must possess a vastly superior power of affecting our vital force. 134 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ XXXV. In order to illustrate this, we shall consider in three different cases, as well what happens in nature when two dissimilar natural diseases meet together in one person, as also the result of the ordinary medical treatment of diseases with unsuitable allopathic drugs, which are incapable of producing an artificial morbid condition similar to the disease to be cured, whereby it will appear that even nature is unable to remove a dissimilar disease already present by one that is unhomceopathic, even though it be stronger, and as little is the unhomoeopathic employment of even the strongest medicines ever capable of curing any disease whatsoever. ~ XXXVI. I.-If the two dissimilar diseases meeting together in the human being, be of equal strength, or still more if the older one be the stronger, the new disease will be repelled by the old one from the body and not allowed to affect it. A patient suffering from a severe chronic disease will not be infected by a moderate autumnal dysentery or other epidemic.-The plague of the Levant, according to Larrey,1 does not break out where scurvy is prevalent, and persons suffering from herpetic eruptions are not infected by it. Rachitis, Jenner alleges, prevents vaccination from taking effect. 1 Memoires et Observations, in the Description de 'Egypte. Tom. i. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 135 Those suffering from pulmonary consumption are not liable to be attacked by epidemic fevers of a not very violent character, according to Von Hildenbrand. ~ XXXVII. And in like manner, under ordinary medical treatment, an old chronic disease remains uncured and as it was, if it is treated not violently according to the common allopathic method, that is, with medicines that are incapable of producing in healthy individuals a state of health similar to the disease, even though the treatment should last for years. This is daily witnessed in practice, it is therefore unnecessary to give any illustrative examples. ~ XXXVIII. II.-Or the new dissimilar disease is the stronger. In this case the disease under which the patient originally laboured, will, as the weaker, be kept back and suspended by the accession of the stronger one, until the latter shall have run its course or been cured, and then the old one again makes it appearance, uncured. Two children affected with a kind of epilepsy remained free from epileptic attacks after infection with ring-worm (tinea); but as soon as the eruption on the head was gone, the epilepsy returned just as before, as Tulpius' observed. The itch, as Schopf3 1 Obs., lib. i. obs. 8. 2 In Hufeland's Journal, xv. II. 136 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. saw, disappeared on the occurrence of the scurvy, but after the cure of the latter it again broke out. So also the pulmonary phthisis remained stationary, when the patient was attacked by a violent typhus, but went on again after the latter had run its course.' If mania occur in a consumptive patient, the phthisis with all its symptoms is removed by the former, but if that go off, the phthisis returns immediately and proves fatal.2 When measles and small-pox are prevalent at the same time, and both attack the same child, the measles that had already broken out are generally checked by the small-pox that came somewhat later; nor do the measles resume their course until after the cure of the small-pox; but it not unfrequently happens that the inoculated small-pox is suspended for four days by the supervention of the measles, as observed by Manget,3 after the desquamation of which, the small-pox completes its course. Even when the inoculation of the small-pox had taken effect for six days, and the measles then broke out, the inflammation of the inoculation remained stationary, and the small-pox did not ensue until the measles had completed their regular course of seven 1 Chevalier, in Hufeland's neuesten Annalen der franzSsischen Heilkunde, ii. p. 192. 2 Mania phthisi superveniens eam cum omnibus suis pheenomenis auffert, verum mox redit phthisis et occidit, abeunte mania. Reil, Memorab. Fasc. iii. v. p. 171. 3 In the Edinb. Med. Comment., Pt. I. i. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 137 days.' In an epidemic of measles, that disease attacked many individuals on the fourth or fifth day after the inoculation' of small-pox, and prevented the development of the small-pox, until it had completed its own course, whereupon the small-pox ensued and proceeded regularly to its termination.2 The true, smooth, erysipelatous-looking scarlatina of Sydenham,3 with sore-throat, was checked on the fourth day by the occurrence of cow-pox, which ran its regular course, and not till it was ended did the scarlatina again appear; but on another occasion, as both diseases seem to be of equal strength, the cow-pox was suspended on the eighth day by the supervention of the true, smooth scarlatina of Sydenham, and the red areola of the former disappeared, until the scarlatina was gone, whereon the cow-pox immediately resumed its course, and went on to its regular termination.4 The measles suspended the cow-pox: on the eighth day, when the cow-pox had nearly attained its climax, the measles broke out, the cow-pox now remained stationary, and did not resume and complete its course until the desquamation of the measles had taken place, so that John Hunter, On the Venereal Disease, p. 3. 2 Rainey, in the Edinb. Med. Comment., iii. p. 480. 3 Very accurately described by Withering and Plenciz, but differing greatly from the purpura (or Roodvonk), which is often erroneously denominated scarlet fever. It is only of late years that the two, which were originally very different diseases, have come to resemble each other in their symptoms. 4 Jenner, in Medicinische Annalen, 1800, August, p. 747. 138 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. on the seventeenth day it presented the appearance it otherwise would have shewn on the tenth day, as Kortum observed.' Even after the measles had broken out, the cowpox inoculation took effect, but did not run its course until the measles were gone, as Kortum likewise witnessed.2 I myself saw the mumps (angina parotidea) immediately disappear when the cow-pox inoculation had taken effect and had nearly attained its height; it was not until the complete termination of the cowpox, and the disappearance of its red areola, that this febrile parotid and 'submaxillary glandular swelling that is caused by a peculiar miasm, reappeared and completed its regular course of seven days. And thus it is with all dissimilar diseases, the stronger I suspends the weaker (when they do not become comSplicated with each other, which is seldom the case with acute diseases), but the one never cures the other. ~ XXXIX. Now the adherents of the ordinary school of medicine saw all this for so many centuries; they saw that nature herself could not cure any disease by the accession of another, be it ever so strong, if the new disease be dissimilar to that already present in the body. What shall we think of them, that they SIn Hufeland's Journal der practischen Arzneikunde, xx. III. p. 50. SLoc. cit. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 139 nevertheless went on treating chronic diseases with allopathic appliances, namely, with medicines and prescriptions capable of producing, God knows what morbid state-almost invariably, however, one dissimilar to the disease to be cured? And even though physicians did not hitherto observe nature attentively, the miserable results of their treatment should have taught them that they were pursuing a false path, that could not lead to the end desired. Did they not perceive when they employed, as was their custom, an aggressive, allopathic treatment in a chronic disease, that thereby they only created an artificial disease dissimilar to the original one, which, as long as it was kept up, merely held in abeyance, merely suppressed, merely suspended the original disease, which latter, however, always returned, and must return, as soon as the diminished strength of the patient no longer admitted of a continuance of the allopathic attacks on the life Thus the itch exanthema certainly disappears very soon from the skin, under the employment of violent purgatives, frequently repeated; but when the patient can no longer stand the factitious (dissimilar) disease of the bowels, and can take no more purgatives, then, either the cutaneous eruption breaks out as before, or the internal psora displays itself in some bad symptom, and the patient, in addition to his undiminished, original disease, has to endure the misery of a ruined digestion and impaired strength to boot. So also, when the ordinary physicians keep up arti 140 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ficial ulcerations of the skin and issues on the exterior of the body, with the view of thereby eradicating a chronic disease, they can NEVER attain their object by so doing, they can NEVER cure them by that means, as such artificial cutaneous ulcers are quite alien and allopathic to the internal affection; but inasmuch as the irritation produced by several issues is, at least sometimes, a stronger (dissimilar) disease than the in-dwelling malady, the latter is thereby sometimes silenced and suspended for a week or two. But it is only suspended, and that for a very short time, and whilst the patient is thereby gradually enervated. Epilepsy, suppressed for many years by means of issues, invariably recurred, and in an aggravated form, when they were allowed to heal up, as Pechlin1 and others testify. But purgatives for itch, and issues for epilepsy, cannot be more heterogeneous, more dissimilar deranging potencies--cannot be more allopathic, more aggressive remedial agents-than are the ordinary prescriptions, composed of unknown ingredients, used in ordinary practice for the other nameless, innumerable forms of disease. These likewise do nothing but debilitate, and only suppress or suspend the malady for a short time without being able to cure it, and when used for a long time always add a new morbid state to the old disease. 1 Obs. phys. med., lib. 2, obs. 30. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 141 ~ XL. III.-Or the new disease, after having long acted on the organism, at length joins the old one that is dissimilar to it, and forms with it a complex disease, so that each of them occupies a particular locality in the organism, namely, the organs peculiarly adapted for it, and as it were, the place specially belonging to it, whilst it leaves the rest to the other disease that is dissimilar to it. Thus a syphilitic patient may become affected with scabies, and vice versa. As two diseases dissimilar to each other, they cannot remove, cannot cure one another. At first the venereal symptoms are kept in abeyance and suspended, when the scabious eruption begins to appear; in course of time, however, (as the syphilis is at least as strong as the itch) the two join together,' that is, each involves those parts of the organism only which are adapted for it, and the patient is thereby rendered more diseased and more difficult to cure. When two dissimilar acute infectious diseases meet, as, for example, small-pox and measles, the one usually suspends the other, as has been before ob1 From careful experiments and cases of complex diseases of this kind, I am now firmly convinced that no real amalgamation of the two takes place, but that in such cases the one exists in the organism beside the other only, each in the parts that are adapted for it, and their cure will be best effected by a judicious alternation of the best mercurial preparation, with the remedies specific for the itch, each given in the most suitable dose and form. 142 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. served; yet there have also been severe epidemic diseases of this kind, where, in rare cases, two dissimilar acute diseases occurred simultaneously in one and the same body, and for a short time combined, as it were, with each other. During an epidemic, in which small-pox and measles were prevalent at the same time, among three hundred cases (in which these diseases avoided or suspended one another, and the measles attacked patients twenty days after the small-pox broke out, the small-pox, however, from seventeen to eighteen days after the appearance of the measles, so that the first disease had previously completed its regular course,) there was yet one single case in which P. Russell1 met with both these dissimilar diseases in one person at the same time. Rainey2 witnessed the simultaneous occurrence of small-pox and measles in two girls. J. Maurice,3 in his whole practice only observed two such cases. Similar cases are to be found in Ettmiiller's4 works, and in the writings of a few others. Zencker5 saw cow-pox run its regular course along with measles and along with purpura. The cow-pox went on its course undisturbed during a mercurial treatment for syphilis, as Jenner saw. 1 Vide Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Med. and Chir. Knowledge, ii. 2 In the Edinb. med. comment., iii. p. 480. 3 In Med. and Phys. Journ. 1805. 4 Opera, ii. P. I. cap. 10. 5 In Hufeland's Journal, xvii. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 143 ~ XLI. Much more frequent than the complex diseases resulting from the association of natural diseases in the same body, are the morbid complications resulting from the art of the ordinary practitioner, which the inappropriate medical treatment (the allopathic method) is in the habit of producing, by the long continued employment of unsuitable drugs. To the natural disease, which it is intended to cure, there are then added, by the constant repetition of the inappropriate medicinal agent, the new, often very tedious, morbid conditions, which might be anticipated from the peculiar powers of the drug; these gradually coalesce with, and complicate, the chronic malady which is dissimilar to them (which they were unable to cure by similarity of action, that is, homoeopathically), adding to the old disease a new, dissimilar, artificial malady of a chronic nature, and thus give the patient a double, in place of a single, disease, that is to say, render him much worse, and more difficult to cure, often quite incurable. Many of the cases in which medical men are consulted, and which are recorded in their journals, as also other histories of cases detailed in medical writings, attest the truth of this. Of a similar character are the frequent cases in which the venereal chancrous disease, complicated especially with psora, or even with the dyscrasia of condylomatous gonorrhoea, is not cured by long continued or frequently repeated treatment with large 144 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. doses of unsuitable mercurial preparations, but assumes its place in the organism beside the chronic mercurial affection that has been in the meantime gradually developed, and thus along with it often forms a hideous monster of complicated disease (under the general name of masked venereal disease), which then, when not quite incurable, is only transformed into health with the greatest difficulty. ~ XLII. Nature herself permits, as has been stated, in some cases, the simultaneous occurrence of two, even of three, natural diseases in one and the same body. This complication, however, it must be remarked, happens only in the case of two dissimilar diseases, which by the eternal laws of nature do not destroy each other, do not annihilate and cannot cure one another, but, as it seems, both (or all three) remain, as it were, separate in the organism, and each takes possession of the parts and systems peculiarly appropriate to it, which, on account of the want of resemblance of these maladies to each other, can very well happen without disparagement to the unity of life. For mercury, besides the morbid symptoms which by virtue of similarity can cure the venereal disease homceopathically, has among its effects many others, unlike those of syphilis, which, if it be employed in large doses, cause new maladies and great destruction of parts, especially in the complication with psora that is so frequent. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 145 ~ XLIII. Totally different, however, is the result when two similar diseases meet together in the organism, that is to say, when to the disease already present, a stronger, similar one is added. In such cases we see how a cure can be effected by the operations of nature, and we get a lesson as to how we ought to cure. ~ XLIV. Two diseases thus similar to each other can neither (as is asserted of dissimilar diseases, in I), repel one another, nor (as has been shewn of dissimilar diseases, in condition II,) suspend one another, so that the old one shall return after the new one has run its course, and just as little can the two similar diseases (as has been demonstrated in III, respecting dissimilar affections) exist beside each other in the organism, or together form a double complex disease. ~ XLV. No! invariably, and in every case, do two diseases, differing, certainly, in kind,' but very similar in their phenomena and effects, and in the sufferings and symptoms they severally produce, annihilate one another, whenever they meet together in the organism; the stronger disease, namely, annihilates the weaker, and that for this simple reason, because the stronger morbific potency, when it appears, does, on account of 1 Vide supra, ~ xxvi-note. 146 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. its similarity of action, involve exactly the same parts of the organism that were hitherto affected by the weaker morbid irritation, which consequently can no longer influence the system, but is extinguished; or (in other words) because, whenever the vital force, deranged by the primary disease, is attacked by the new, very similar, but stronger, dynamic morbific potency, it therefore remains affected by the latter alone, whereby the former, similar, but weaker disease must, as a mere dynamic power without material substratum, cease to exercise any further morbid influence on the vital force, consequently it must cease to exist. ~ XLVI. I might adduce many examples of diseases which, in the course of nature, have been homceopathically cured by other diseases with similar symptoms, were it not necessary, as my object is to speak about something determinate and indubitable, to confine attention solely to those (few) diseases which are invariably the same, arise from a fixed miasm, and hence merit a distinct name. Among these the small-pox, so dreaded on account of the great number and severity of its symptoms, occupies a prominent position, and it has removed and cured a number of affections with similar symptoms. 1 Just as the image of the lamp's flame is rapidly overpowered and effaced from our retina by the stronger sunbeam impinging on the eye. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 147 How frequently does small-pox produce violent ophthalmia, terminating even in blindness; and see! by its inoculation Dezoteux1 cured a chronic ophthalmia permanently, and Leroy2 another. An amaurosis of two years' duration, consequent on suppressed tinea, was perfectly cured by it, according to Klein.3 How often does not small-pox cause deafness and dyspnoea! And both these chronic diseases it removed on reaching its acme, as J. Fr. Closs4 observed. Swelling of the testicle, even of a very severe character, is a frequent symptom of small-pox, and on this account it was enabled, as Klein5 observed, to cure, by virtue of similarity, a large hard swelling of the left testicle, that had arisen from a bruise. And another observer6 saw a similar swelling of the testicle cured by it. Among the troublesome symptoms of small-pox is a dysenteric state of the bowels, and it subdued, as Fr. Wendt7 observed, a case of dysentery, as a similar morbific potency. ' Traite de 1'inoculation, p. 189. 2 Heilkunde fuir MUtter, p. 384. 3 Interpres clinicus, p. 293. 4 Neue Heilart der Kinderpocken, Ulm, 1769, p. 68; and Specim., obs. No. 18. 5 Op. cit. 6 Nov. Act. Nat. cur., vol. i. obs. 22. 7 Nachricht von dem Krankeninstitut zu Erlangen, 1783. L2 148 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. Small-pox coming on after vaccination, as well on account of its greater strength as its great similarity, immediately removes entirely the cow-pox homoeopathically, and does not permit it to come to maturity; but on the other hand, the cow-pox when near maturity does, on account of its great similarity, homceopathically diminish very much the supervening smallpox, and make it much milder, as Miihry' and many others testify. The inoculated cow-pox, whose lymph, besides the protective matter, contains the contagion of a general cutaneous eruption of another nature, consisting of usually small, dry (rarely large, pustular) pimples, resting on a small red areola, frequently conjoined with round red cutaneous spots, and often accompanied by the most violent itching, which rash appears in not a few children several days before, more frequently, however, after the red areola of the cow-pock, and goes off in a few days, leaving behind small, red, hard spots on the skin; the inoculated cow-pox, I say, after it has taken, cures perfectly and permanently, in a homoeopathic manner, by the similarity of this accessory miasm, analogous cutaneous eruptions of children, often of very long standing and of a very troublesome character, as a number of observers2 bear witness. 1 In Robert-Willan on Vaccination. 2 Especially Clavier, Hurel, and Desormeaux, in the Bulletin des sciences medicales, publie par les membres du comite central de la ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 149 The cow-pox, a peculiar symptom of which is to cause tumefaction of the arm,1 cured, after it broke out, a swollen half-paralysed arm.2 The fever accompanying cow-pox, which occurs at the time of the production of the red areola, cured homceopathically an intermittent fever in two individuals, as the younger Hardege3 reports, confirming what J. Hunter4 had already observed, that two fevers (similar diseases) cannot co-exist in the same body." soc. de m6decine du departement de 'Eure, 1808. Also in the Journal de medecine continue, vol. xv. p. 206. 1 Balhorn, in Hufeland's Journal, x. II. 2 Stevenson, in Duncan's Annals of Medicine, lustr. II. vol. i. pt. II. No. 9. 3 In Hufeland's Journal, xxiii. 4 On the Venereal Disease, p. 4. SThe examples adduced in this place, in the former editions of the Organon except the last, of chronic maladies cured by the itch, can, according to the discoveries and explanations I have given in the first part of my book on Chronic Diseases, be looked upon as only in a certain degree homoeopathic cures. The great maladies which thereby disappeared (suffocative asthma and pulmonary phthisis of many years' standing) were themselves, originally, of psoric origin, widely spread, life-threatening symptoms of an ancient psora that had been fully developed in the interior of the system, which was again transformed into the simple form of the primitive itch disease, by the cutaneous eruption resulting from the new infection (as always happens in such cases), whereby the old malady and the dangerous symptoms were made to disappear. Such a transformation into the primitive form is therefore only to be considered as a homoeopathic curative agent of these extensive symptoms of highly developed psora, in so far as the new infection puts the patient in a much more 150 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. The measles bears a strong resemblance in the character of its fever and cough to the hoopingcough, and hence it was that Bosquillon1 noticed in an epidemic where both these affections prevailed, that many children who then took measles remained free from hooping-cough during that epidemic. Theywould all have been protected from, and rendered incapable of being infected by, the hooping-cough in that and all subsequent epidemics, by the measles, if the hoopingcough were not a disease that has only a partial similarity to the measles, that is to say, if it had also a cutaneous eruption similar to what the latter possesses. As it is, however, the measles can but preserve a large number from hooping-cough, and that only in the epidemic prevailing at the time. If, however, the measles come in contact with a disease resembling it in its chief symptom, the eruption, it can indisputably remove, and effect a homceopathic cure of the latter. Thus, a chronic herpetic eruption was entirely and permanently (homoeopathically) cured2 by the breaking out of the measles, as Kortum 3 observed. An excessively burning miliary rash on the face, neck, and arms, that had lasted six years, and was aggravated by every change of favourable condition to be cured of the whole psora, by antipsoric medicines. 1 Cullen's Elements of Practical Medicine, P. II. 1-3, ch. vii. 2 Or at least that symptom was removed. ' In Hufeland's Journal, XX. iii. p. 50. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 151 weather, under the influence of measles, assumed the form of a swelling of the surface of the skin; after the measles had run its course, the rash was cured, and returned no more.' ~ XLVII. Nothing could teach the physician in a plainer and more convincing manner than the above, what kind of artificial morbific potency (medicine) he ought to choose, in order to cure in a sure, rapid, and permanent manner, agreeably to the process that takes place in nature. ~ XLVIII. Neither in the course of nature, as we see from all the above examples, nor by the physician's skill, can an existing affection or malady in any one instance be removed by a dissimilar morbific potency, be it ever so strong, but solely by one that is similar in symptoms, and is somewhat stronger, according to eternal, unchangeable laws of nature, which have not hitherto been recognised. ~ XLIX. We should have been able to meet with many more true, natural homceopathic cures of this kind, if, on the one hand, the attention of observers had 1 Rau, iiber d. Werth des horn. Heilv. Heidelb. 1824, p. 35. 152 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. been more directed to them, and, on the other, nature had not been so deficient in homoeopathic auxiliary diseases. ~L. Mighty nature herself has, as we see, at her command, as instruments for effecting homoeopathic cures, little more than the fixed miasmatic diseases, (the itch,) measles, and smallpox,' which,2 as curative agents, are either more dangerous to life and of a more frightful character than the disease they are to cure, or of such a kind (like the itch), that after they have effected the cure, they themselves require curing, in order to be eradicated in their turn; both circumstances that make their employment, as homoeopathic remedial agents, difficult, uncertain, and dangerous. And how few diseases are there, to which man is subject, that find their analogous remedial agent in smallpox, measles, and itch! In the course of nature, therefore, but few maladies can. be cured by these uncertain and hazardous homceopathic remedial agents, and the cure by their instrumentality is also attended with danger and much difficulty, for this reason, that the doses of these morbific powers can not be diminished according to circumstances, as can be done with doses of medicine; but for the cure 1 And the exanthematous contagious principle present in the cow-pox lymph. 2 Namely, smallpox and measles. 154 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. can diminish to such a degree, that they shall only remain the least degree stronger than the similar natural disease they are intended to cure; so that, in this incomparable method of cure, there is no necessity for any violent attack upon the organism, even for the eradication of an ancient, inveterate disease; this method of cure takes place with only a gentle, unnoticeable, and yet often rapid transition from the tormenting natural disease to the desirable state of permanent health. ~ LII. Surely no intelligent physician, after these examples, as clear as daylight, can still go on in the old, ordinary system of medicine, attacking the body in its least diseased parts with (allopathic) medicines that have no direct, pathological (homacopathic) relation to the disease to be cured, with purgatives, counter-irritants, derivatives, &c.,' and thus, at a sacrifice of the patient's strength, inducing a morbid state quite heterogeneous and dissimilar to the original one, to the ruin of his constitution, by large doses of mixtures of medicines chiefly of unknown qualities, the employment of which can have no other result, as is demonstrated by the eternal laws of nature in the above, and all other cases in the world, in which SVide supra in the Introduction: "A review of the medication, &c.;" and my book, "Die AllSopathie, ein Wort der Warnung fuir Kranke jeder Art," Leipzig, bei Baumgi~rtner. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 155 a disease dissimilar to the other occurs in the human organism, than that a cure is nevr thereby effected in diseases, but an aggravation is the invariable consequence,-this procedure, therefore, can have no other result, than that either (because, according to the process of nature in I, the older disease in the body repels the dissimilar one, wherewith the patient is assailed) the natural disease remains as it was, under mild allopathic treatment, be it ever so long continued, the patient being thereby weakened, or (because, according to the process of nature in II, the new and stronger disease merely obscures and suspends for a short time the original weaker dissimilar one) by the violent attack on the body with strong allopathic drugs, the original disease seems to yield for a time, to return in, at least, all its former strength, or (because, according to the process of nature in III, two dissimilar diseases, when both are of a chronic character and of equal strength, take up a position beside one another in the organism and complicate each other) in those cases in which the physician employs for a long time morbific potencies opposite and dissimilar to the natural chronic disease, and allopathic medicines in large doses, such allopathic treatment, without ever being able to remove and to cure the original (dissimilar) chronic disease, only developes new artificial diseases beside it; and, as daily experience shows, only renders the patient much worse and more incurable than before. 156 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ LIII. True, mild cures take place, as is evident, only in a homceopathic way, a way, which, as we have also shewn above (~ vii-xxv), in a different manner, by experience and deductions, is also the true and the only one whereby diseases may be most surely, rapidly and permanently extinguished by art, for this mode of cure is founded on an eternal infallible law of nature. ~ LIV. This, the hlomoeopathic way, must, moreover, as observed above (~ xliii-xlix) be the only proper one, because of the three possible modes of applying medicines in diseases, it is the only direct way to a mild, sure, permanent cure, without injury to another part, and without weakening the patient. The pure homceopathic mode of cure is the only proper way, the only direct way, the only way possible to human skill, as certainly as only one straight line can be drawn betwixt two given points. ~LV. The second mode of employing medicines in diseases, the allopathic or heteropathic, which, without any pathological reference to what is actually diseased in the body, attacks the parts most exempt from the disease, in order to lead away the disease through them, and thus to expel it, as is imagined, has hitherto been the most general method. I have 158 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. a mockery of the patient affected with a chronic disease. ~ LVII. In order to carry into practice this antipathic method, the ordinary physician gives, for a single troublesome symptom, from among the many other symptoms of the disease which he passes by unheeded, a medicine concerning which it is well known that it produces the exact opposite of the morbid symptom sought to be subdued, from which, agreeably to the fifteen-centuries-old traditional rule of the antiquated medical school (contraria contrariis) he can expect the speediest (palliative) aid. He gives large doses of opium for pains of all sorts, because this drug soon benumbs the sensibility, and administers the same remedy for diarrhoeas, because it speedily puts a stop -t_ the peristaltic_ mtjioi bf -the'-inre-i si anal, and makes it insensible; and also in sleeplessness, because opium rapidly produces a stupefied, comatose sleep; he gives purgatives when the patient has suffered long from constipation and costiveness; he causes the burnt hand to be plunged into cold water, which, from its low degree of temperature, seems instantaneously to remove the burning pain, as if by magic; he puts the patient who complains of chilliness and deficiency of vital heat into warm baths, which warm him immediately, and he makes him who is weakened by a long illness drink wine, whereby he is instantly enlivened and revived; and ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 159 in like manner he employs some other opposite (antipathic) remedial means, but he has very few, except those just mentioned, as it is only of very few substances that some peculiar (primary) action is known to the ordinary medical art. ~ LVIII. If, in estimating the value of this mode of employing medicines, we should even pass over the circumstance, that it is an extremely defective symptomatic treatment (v. note to ~ vii.), wherein the practitioner devotes his attention in a merely one-sided manner to a single symptom, consequently to only a small part of the whole, whereby relief for the totality of the disease, which can alone be the wish of the patient, cannot evidently be expected,-we must, on the other hand, demand of experience, if, in one single case where such antipathic employment of medicine was made use of in a chronic or persisting affection, after the transient amelioration, there did not ensue an increased aggravation of the symptom, which was subdued at first in a palliative manner, an aggravation, indeed, of the whole disease? And every attentive observer will agree in this, that, after such short antipathic amelioration, aggravation follows in every case without exception, although the ordinary physician is in the habit of giving his patient another explanation of this subsequent aggravation, and ascribes it to malignancy of the original disease, now for the first 160 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. time shewing itself, or to the occurrence of quite a new disease.1 ~ LIX. Important symptoms of persistent diseases have never yet been treated with such palliative, antagonistic remedies, without a relapse, indeed a palpable aggravation of such maladies, occurring a few hours afterwards. For a chronic tendency to sleepiness during the day, the physician prescribed coffee, whose primary action is to enliven, and when it had exhausted its action the day-somnolence increased;for frequent waking at night, he gave in the evening, without heeding the other symptoms of the disease, 1 Little as physicians have hitherto been in the habit of observing accurately, the aggravation that so certainly follows such palliative treatment could not altogether escape their notice. A striking example of this is to be found in J. H. Schulze's Diss. qua corporis humani momentanearum alterationum specimina quaedam expenduntur, Halke, 1741, ~ 28. Willis bears testimony to something similar, Pharm. rat. ~ 7, cap. i. p. 298: " Opiata dolores atrocissimos plerumque sedant atque indolentiam-procurant, eamque - aliquamdiu et pro stato quodam tempore continuant, quo spatio elapso dolores mox recrudescunt et brevi ad solitam ferociam augentur." And also at page 295: " Exactis opii viribus illico redeunt tormina, nec atrocitatem suam remittunt, nisi dum ab eodem pharmaco rursus incantuntur." In like manner J. Hunter (On the Venereal Disease, p. 13) says, that wine and cordials increase the action, without giving real strength, and the powers of the body are afterwards sunk proportionally as they have been raised, by which nothing can be gained, but a great deal may be lost. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 161 opium, which by virtue of its primary action produced the same night (stupefied, dull) sleep, but the subsequent nights were still more sleepless than before;-to chronic diarrhoeas, he opposed, without regarding the other morbid signs, the same opium, whose primary action is to constipate the bowels, and after a transient stoppage of the diarrhcoa, it subsequently became all the worse;--violent and frequently recurring pains of all kinds he could subdue with opium for but a short time, they then always returned in greater, often intolerable, severity, or some much worse affection came in their stead.For nocturnal cough of long standing, the ordinary physician knew no better than to administer opium, whose primary action is to suppress every irritation, the cough would then perhaps cease the first night, but during the subsequent nights it would be still more severe, and if it were again and again suppressed by this palliative in increased doses, fever and nocturnal perspiration were added to the disease;weakness of the bladder, with consequent retention of urine, was sought to be conquered by the antipathic power of cantharides to irritate the urinary passages, whereby evacuation of the urine was certainly at first effected, but thereafter the bladder becomes more irritable and unable to contract, and paralysis of the bladder is imminent;-with large doses of purgative drugs and laxative salts, which excite the bowels to frequent evacuation, it was sought to remove a chronic tendency to constipation, M 162 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. but in the secondary action the bowels became still more confined;--the ordinary physician seeks to remove chronic debility by the administration of wine, which, however, stimulates only in its primary action, and hence the forces sink all the lower in the secondary action;-by bitter substances and condiments he tries to strengthen and warm the chronically weak and cold stomach, but in the secondary action of these palliatives, which are stimulating in their primary action only, the stomach becomes yet more inactive;-long standing deficiency of vital heat and chilly disposition ought surely to yield to prescriptions of warm baths, but still more weak, cold and chilly do the patients subsequently become; - severely burnt parts feel instantaneous alleviation from the application of cold water, but the burning pain afterwards increases to an incredible degree, and the inflammation spreads and rises to a still greater height;1-by means of the sternutatory remedies that provoke a secretion of mucus, coryza with stoppage of the nose of long standing, is sought to be removed, but, it escapes observation, that the disease is aggravated all the more by these antagonistic remedies (in their secondary action), and the nose becomes still more stopped;-by electricity and galvanism, which in their primary action greatly stimulate muscular action, chronically weak and almost paralytic limbs were soon excited to more active movements, but the conse J Vide Introduction, p. 104, note. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 163 quence (the secondary action) was complete deadening of all muscular irritability and perfect paralysis;-by venesections, it was attempted to remove chronic determination of blood to the head, but they were always followed by greater congestion;-ordinary medical practitioners know nothing better with which to treat the paralytic torpor of the corporeal and mental organs, conjoined with unconsciousness, which prevails in many kinds of typhus, than with large doses of valerian, because this is one of the most powerful medicinal agents for causing animation and increasing the motive faculty; in their ignorance, however, they knew not that this action is only a primary action, and that the organism, after that is passed, most certainly falls back, in the secondary (antagonistic) action, into still greater stupor and immobility, that is to say, into paralysis of the mental and corporeal organs (and death); they did not see, that the very diseases they supplied most plentifully with valerian, which is in such cases an oppositely acting, antipathic remedy, most infallibly terminated fatally.-The old school physician rejoices' that he is able to reduce for several hours the velocity of the small rapid pulse in cachectic patients with the very first dose of uncombined purple fox-glove (which in its primary action makes the pulse slower), its rapidity, however, soon returns; repeated, and now increased doses, effect an ever smaller diminution of its rapidity, and at length 1 Vide Hufeland, in his pamphlet, Die Homiopathie, p. 20. x 2 164 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. none at all, indeed in the secondary action, the pulse becomes uncountable; sleep, appetite and strength depart, and a speedy death is invariably the result, or else insanity ensues. How often, in one word, the disease is aggravated, or something even worse is effected, by the secondary action of such antagonistic (antipathic) remedies, the old school with its false theories does not perceive, but experience teaches it in a terrible manner. ~ LX. If these ill effects are produced, as may very naturally be expected from the antipathic employment of medicines, the ordinary physician imagines he can get over the difficulty, by giving, at each renewed aggravation, an increased dose of the remedy, whereby an equally transient suppression is effected; and as there then is a still greater necessity for giving ever increasing quantities of the palliative, there ensues either another more serious disease, or frequently even danger to life and death itself, but never a cure of a disease of considerable or of long standing. ~ LXI. Had physicians been capable of reflecting on the sad results of the antagonistic employment of medicines, they had long since discovered the grand truth, THAT THE TRUE RADICAL HEALING ART MUST CONSIST IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF SUCH AN ANTIPATHIC TREATMENT OF THE SYMPTOMS OF DISEASE; they would have be ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 165 come convinced, that as a medicinal action antagonistic to the symptoms of the disease (an antipathically employed medicine) is followed by only transient relief, and after that is passed, by invariable aggravation, the converse of that procedure, the homoopathic employment of medicines according to similarity of symptoms, must effect a permanent and perfect cure, when at the same time the opposite of their large doses, the most minute doses, are exhibited. But neither the obvious aggravation that ensued from their antipathic treatment, nor the fact that no physician ever effected a permanent cure of diseases of considerable or of long standing, unless some homoeopathic medicinal agent was accidentally a chief ingredient in his prescription, nor yet the circumstance that all the rapid and perfect cures that nature ever performed (~ xlvi.), were always effected by the supervention upon the old disease of one of a similar character, ever taught them, during such a long series of centuries, this truth, the knowledge of which can alone conduce to the benefit of the sick. ~ LXII. But on what this ruinous result of the palliative, antipathic treatment, and the efficacy of the reverse, the homoeopathic treatment, depend, the following facts, deduced from manifold observations, which no one before me perceived, though they are so very palpable and so very evident, and are of such infinite importance to the healing art. 16.6 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ LXIII. 'Every agent that acts upon the vitality, every medicine produces more or less change in the vital force, and causes a certain alteration in the health of the individual for a longer or a shorter period. This is termed primary action. Although a product of the medicinal and vital powers conjointly, it belongs principally to the influencing power. To this influence our vital force endeavours to oppose its own energy. This reaction belongs to our preserving vital force, of which it is an automatic action, and it is termed secondary action or counter-action. ~ LXIV. During the primary action of the artificial morbific potencies (medicines) on our healthy body, our vital force seems to conduct itself merely in a susceptible (receptive, as it were passive) manner, and appears, so to say, compelled to permit the impressions of the artificial power acting from without, to take place in it, and thereby alter its state of health; it then, however, appears to rouse itself again to action, and to develope (a), the exact opposite condition (counteraction, secondary action) to this effect produced upon it (the primary action), if there is an opposite to it, and that in as great a degree as was the effect (primary action) of the artificial morbific or medicinal potency on it, and in proportion to its own energy;-or (b), when there is not in nature a state exactly the opposite of the primary action, it appears to endeavour to ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 167 recover its lost balance, that is, to make its superior power available in the extinction of the change wrought in it from without (by the medicine), in the place of which it substitutes its normal state (secondary action, curative action). ~ LXV. Examples of (a) are frequent enough. A hand bathed in hot water is at first much warmer than the other hand that has not been so treated (primary action), but when it is withdrawn from the hot water and again perfectly dried, it becomes in a short time cold, and at length much colder than the other (secondary action). A person heated by violent exercise (primary action), is afterwards affected with chilliness and shivering (secondary action). To one who was yesterday heated by drinking much wine (primary action), to-day every breath of air feels too cold (counter-action of the organism, secondary action). An arm that has been kept long in very cold water is at first much paler and colder (primary action) than the other; but removed from the cold water, and dried, it subsequently becomes not only warmer than the other, but even hot, red and inflamed (secondary action, reaction of the vital force.) Excessive liveliness follows the use of strong coffee (primary action), but torpor and drowsiness remain for a long time afterwards (reaction, secondary action), if this be not always again removed for a short time by imbibing fresh supplies of coffee (palliative). After 168 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. the deep stupefied sleep caused by opium (primary action), the following night will be still more sleepless (re-action, secondary action). After the constipation produced by opium (primary action), diarrhoea ensues (secondary action); and after purgation with medicines" that irritate the bowels, constipation and costiveness of several days' duration ensue (secondary action). And in like manner, it always happens after the primary action of a potency that produces in large doses a great change in the health of a healthy person, that its exact opposite, when, as has been observed, there is positively such a thing, is produced in the secondary action by our vital force. ~ LXVI. An obvious antagonistic secondary action, however, is, as may readily be conceived, not to be noticed from the action of quite minute homceopathic doses of the deranging potencies on the healthy body. A small dose of every one of them certainly produces a primary action that is perceptible to a sufficiently attentive observer; but the living organism employs against it only so much counter-action (secondary action) as is necessary for the restoration of the normal condition. ~ LXVII. These incontrovertible truths which offer themselves to our notice in nature and experience, explain to us the beneficial action that takes place under ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 169 homceopathic treatment, whilst on the other hand they demonstrate how wrong the antipathic and palliative treatment of diseases with antagonistically acting medicines, is.' 1 Only in the most urgent cases, where danger to life and imminent death allow no time for the action of a homeopathic remedynot hours, sometimes not even quarter-hours, and scarcely minutes -in sudden accidents occurring to previously healthy individuals, for example, in asphyxia and suspended animation from lightning, from suffocation, freezing, drowning, &c.,-is it admissible and judicious as a preliminary measure to stimulate the irritability and sensibility (the physical life) with a palliative, as for instance, with mild electrical shocks, with clysters of strong coffee, with a stimulating odour, gradual application of heat, &c. When this stimulation is effected, the play of the vital organs again goes on in its former healthy manner, for there is here no disease "' to be removed, but merely an obstruction and suppression of the vital force which in itself is healthy. To this category belong various antidotes to sudden poisonings: alkalies for mineral acids, hepar sulphuris for metallic poisons, coffee and camphor (and ipecacuanha) for poisoning by opium, &c. It does not follow that a homceopathic medicine has been ill selected for a case of disease, because some of the medicinal symptoms merely are antipathic to some of the less important and minor symptoms of the disease; if only the others, the stronger, well * And yet the new sect that mixes the two systems, appeals (though in vain) to this observation, in order that they may have an excuse for encountering everywhere such exceptions to the general rule in diseases, and to justify their convenient employment of allopathic palliatives, and of other injurious allopathic trash besides, solely for the sake of sparing themselves the trouble of seeking for the suitable hommeopathic remedy for each case of disease-I might almost say, for the sake of sparing themselves the trouble of being homoeopathic physicians, and yet wishing to appear as such. But their performances are on a par with the system they pursue; they are nothing to boast of. 170 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ LXVIII. In homoeopathic cures they shew us, that from the uncommonly small doses of medicine (~ cclxxv -cclxxxvii) required in this system of medicine, which are just sufficient, by their similarity of symptoms, to overpower and displace the similar natural disease, there certainly remains, after the destruction of the latter, at first a certain amount of medicinal disease alone in the organism, but, on account of the extraordinary minuteness of the dose, it is so transient, so slight, and disappears so rapidly of its own accord, that the vital force has no occasion to employ, against this small artificial derangement of its health, any more considerable counter-action than will suffice to elevate its present state of health up to the healthy point, that is, than will suffice to effect complete recovery, for which, after the extinction of the previous morbid derangement, but little effort is required (~ lxv. b). ~ LXIX. In the antipathic (palliative) mode of treatment, however, precisely the reverse of this takes place. marked (characteristic) and peculiar symptoms of the disease are covered and matched, by the same medicinal substance, with similarity of symptoms, that is to say, overpowered, destroyed, and extinguished; the few opposite symptoms also disappear of themselves after the expiry of the term of action of the medicament, without retarding the cure in the least. 172 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. pathic medicine, affect the vital force with a similar artificial disease, so as to be able to step into the place of the natural morbid derangement present, the palliative medicine must, as a thing totally differing from, and opposed to, the morbid derangement, leave the latter uneradicated; it renders it, as before said, by a semblance of dynamic neutralization,' at first unfelt, but, like every medicinal disease, it is soon spontaneously extinguished, and not only leaves the disease behind, just as it was, but soon compels the vital force (as it must, like all palliatives, be given in large doses, in order to effect the apparent removal) to produce an opposite condition (~ lxiii-lxv) to this palliative medicine, the reverse of the medicinal action, consequently the analogue of the still present, undestroyed, natural morbid derangement, which is 1 In the living human being, no permanent neutralization of contrary or antagonistic sensations can take place, as happens with substances of opposite qualities in the chemical laboratory, where, for instance, sulphuric acid and potash unite to form a perfectly different substance, a neutral salt, which is now no longer either acid or alkali, and is not decomposed even by heat. Such amalgamations and thorough combinations to form something permanently neutral and indifferent, do not, as has been said, ever take place from dynamic impressions of an antagonistic nature in our sensific apparatus. Only a semblance of neutralization and mutual removal occurs in such cases at first, but the antagonistic sensations do not permanently remove one another. The tears of the sorrowful will be dried for but a short time by a laughable play; the jokes are, however, soon forgotten, and his tears then flow still more abundantly. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 173 necessarily strengthened and increased' by the addition (reaction against the palliative) furnished by the vital force. The morbid symptom (this single part of the disease) consequently becomes worse after the term of the action of the palliative has expired; worse in proportion to the magnitude of the dose of the palliative. Accordingly (to keep to the same example) the larger the dose of opium given to allay the pain, so much the more does the pain increase above its original intensity, as soon as the opium has exhausted its action.2 1 Plain as this is, it has been misunderstood, and in opposition to this maxim some have asserted, " that the palliative in its secondary action, which would then be similar to the disease present, must be capable of curing just as well as a homceopathic medicine does by its primary action." But they did not reflect, that the secondary action is not a product of the medicine, but invariably of the antagonistically acting vital force of the organism; that therefore this secondary action resulting from the vital force on the employment of a palliative, is a state similar to the symptoms of the disease, which the palliative left uneradicated, and which the reaction of the vital force against the palliative consequently increased still more. 2 As when in a dark dungeon, where the prisoner could with difficulty recognize objects close to him, alcohol is suddenly lighted, everything is instantly illuminated in a most cheerful manner to the unhappy wretch; but when it is extinguished, the brighter the flame was previously, the blacker is the night which now envelops him, and renders everything about him much more difficult to be seen than before. 174 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ LXX. From what has been already adduced, we cannot fail to draw the following inferences: That every thing of a really morbid character and which ought to be cured, that the physician can discover in diseases, consists solely in the sufferings of the patient, and the sensible alterations in his health, in a word, solely in the sum total of the symptoms, by means of which the disease demands the medicine requisite for its relief, whilst on the other hand, every internal cause assigned to it, every occult quality or imaginary material morbific principle, is nothing but an empty dream; That this derangement of the health, which we term disease, can only be converted into health by another revolution in the health by means of medicines, whose sole curative power, consequently, can only consist in deranging man's health, that is to say, in a peculiar excitation of morbid symptoms, and is learned with most distinctness and purity by testing them on healthy individuals; That, according to all experience, a natural disease can never be cured by medicines that possess the power of producing in the healthy individual an alien morbid state (dissimilar morbid symptoms) diftering from that of the ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 175 disease to be cured (never, therefore, by an allopathic mode of treatment) and that even in nature no cure ever takes place, in which an inherent disease is removed, annihilated and cured by the accession of another disease dissimilar to it, be the new one ever so strong; That, moreover, all experience proves, that, by means of medicines which have a tendency to produce in the healthy individual an artificial morbid symptom, antagonistic to the single symptom of disease sought to be cured, the cure of a long standing affection will never be effected, but merely a very transient alleviation, always followed by aggravation; and that, in a word, this antipathic and merely palliative mode of treatment in long standing diseases of a serious character is quite incapable of effecting the desired object; That, however, the third and only other possible mode of treatment (the komoeopathic), in which there is employed for the totality of the symptoms of the natural disease, a medicine capable of producing the most similar symptoms possible in the healthy individual, is the only efficacious method of treatment, whereby diseases, as mere dynamic derangements of the vital force, are overpowered, and being thus easily, perfectly and permanently extinguished, must necessarily cease to exist-and for this mode of procedure we have the example of ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 177 cesses of the abnormally deranged vital force, which are disposed to finish their course more or less quickly, but always in a moderate time-they are termed acute diseases-; and partly diseases of such a character, that, with small, often imperceptible beginnings, dynamically derange the living organism, each in its own peculiar manner, and cause it gradually to deviate from the healthy condition, in such a way, that the automatic vital energy, called vital force, whose office is to preserve the health, only opposes to them at the commencement, as during their progress, imperfect, unsuitable, useless resistance, but is unable, of itself, to extinguish them, but must helplessly allow (them to spread and) itself to be ever more and more abnormally deranged, until at length the organism is destroyed; these are termed chronic diseases. They arise from infection with a chronic miasm. ~ LXXIII. As regards acute diseases, they are partly of such a kind as attack human beings individually, the exciting cause being injurious agencies to which they were particularly exposed. Excesses in food, or an insufficient supply of it, severe physical impressions, chills, over-heatings, dissipation, strains, &c., or psychical irritations, mental emotions, and the like, are exciting causes of such acute febrile affections; in reality, however, they are generally only a transient explosion of latent psora, which spontaneously returns to its dormant state, if the acute diseases were N 178 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. not of too violent a character and were soon quelled -and they are partly of such a kind as attack several persons at the same time, here and there (sporadically), by means of meteoric or telluric influences and injurious agents, for being morbidly affected by which, only a few persons at a time possess the susceptibility. Allied to these are those diseases wherein many persons are attacked with very similar sufferings from the same cause (epidemically), these diseases generally become infectious (contagious) when they prevail among thickly congregated masses of human beings. Thence arise fevers,' in each instance of a peculiar nature, and because the cases of disease are derived from the same origin, they invariably produce in those they affect an identical morbid process, which when left to itself terminates in a moderate period of time in death or recovery. The ravages of war, inundations and famine are not unfrequently their exciting causes and producers-sometimes they are peculiar acute miasms which recur in the same manner (hence known by some traditional name), which either attack persons but once in a life' The homceopathic physician, who does not entertain the foregone conclusions devised by the ordinary school (who have fixed upon a few names of such fevers, beyond which mighty nature dare not produce any others, so as to admit of their treating these diseases according to some fixed method), does not acknowledge the names gaol fever, bilious fever, typhus fever, putrid fever, nervous fever, or mucous fever, but treats them each according to their several peculiarities. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 179 time, as the small-pox, measles, hooping-cough, the ancient smooth, bright red scarlet-fever' of Sydenham, the mumps, &c., or such as recur frequently, in pretty much the same manner, the plague of the Levant, the yellow-fever of the sea-coast, the Asiatic cholera, &c. ~ LXXIV. Among chronic diseases we must still alas! reckon those so commonly met with, artificially produced in allopathic treatment by the prolonged use of violent heroic medicines in large and increasing doses, by the abuse of calomel, corrosive sublimate, mercurial ointment, nitrate of silver, iodine and its ointments, opium, valerian, cinchona bark and quinine, foxglove, prussic acid, sulphur and sulphuric acid, perennial purgatives, venesections, leeches, issues, setons, &c., wherewith the vital force is sometimes weakened to an unmerciful extent, sometimes, if it do not succumb, gradually abnormally deranged (by each substance in 1 Subsequently to the year 1801 a kind of purpura miliaris (roodvonk), which came from the West, was by physicians confounded with the scarlet fever, notwithstanding that they exhibited totally different symptoms, that the latter found its prophylactic and curative remedy in belladonna, the former in aconite, and that the former was generally merely sporadic, while the latter was invariably epidemic. Of late years, it seems as if the two occasionally joined to form an eruptive fever of a peculiar kind, for which neither the one nor yet the other remedy, alone, will be found to be exactly homoeopathic. N2 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 181 ~ LXXVI. Only for natural diseases, has the beneficent Deity granted us, in Homoeopathy, the means of affording relief-but those devastations and maimings of the human organism in its exterior and interior, rudely effected by years, frequently, of the unsparing exercise of a false art, with its injurious drugs and modes of treatment, must be remedied by the vital force itself (appropriate aid being given for the eradication of any chronic miasm that may happen to be lurking in the back-ground), if it have not already been too much weakened, and can devote several years to this huge operation, undisturbed. A human healing art for the restoration to the normal state of those innumerable abnormal conditions so often produced by the allopathic non-healing art, there is not and cannot be. ~ LXXVII. Those diseases are inappropriately named chronic, which persons incur who expose themselves continually to avoidable noxious agencies, who are in the habit of indulging in injurious liquors or aliments, are addicted to dissipation of many kinds, which undermine the health, who constantly abstain from things that are necessary for the support of life, who reside in unhealthy localities, especially marshy districts, are domiciled in cellars or other confined dwellings, who are deprived of exercise in the open air, who ruin their health by excessive exertion of body 182 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. or mind, who are constantly exposed to annoyance, &c. These states of ill-health which persons bring upon themselves, disappear spontaneously, if a chronic miasm do not exist in the body, when the mode of living is improved, and they cannot be called chronic diseases. ~ LXXVIII. The true natural chronic diseases are those that arise from a chronic miasm, which when left to themselves, and unchecked by the employment of those remedies that are specific for them, always go on increasing and growing worse, notwithstanding the best mental and corporeal regimen, and torment the patient to the end of his life with ever aggravated sufferings. These are the most numerous and greatest tormentors of the human race, for the most robust constitution, the best regulated mode of living, and the most vigorous energy of the vital force are insufficient for their eradication. ~ LXXIX. Hitherto syphilis alone has been known as in some degree a chronic miasmatic disease, which when uncured is only extinguished with the termination of life. Sycosis (the condylomatous disease), equally ineradicable by the vital force, without proper medicinal treatment, was not recognized as a chronic miasmatic disease of a peculiar character, which it nevertheless undoubtedly is, and physicians imagined ORGANON OF MEDICIN 1. 183 they had cured it when they had destroyed the growths upon the skin, but the persisting dyscrasia occasioned by it escaped their observation. ~ LXXX. Incalculably greater and more important than the two just named, however, is the chronic miasm of psora, which, whilst those twvo give indications of their specific internal dyscra;ia, the one by the venereal chancre, the other by the cauliflower-like growths, does also, after the completion of the internal infection of the whole organism, announce by a peculiar cutaneous eruption, sometimes consisting only of a few vesicles, accompanied by intolerable voluptuous tickling itching (and a peculiar odour), the monstrous internal chronic miasm-the psora, the only real fundamental cause and producer of all the other numerous, I may say innumerable, forms of disease,' which, under the names of nervous debility, I spent twelve years in investigating the source of this incredibly large number of chronic affections, in ascertaining and collecting certain proofs of this great truth, which had remained unknown to all former or contemporary observers, and in discovering at the same time the principal (antipsoric) remedies, which collectively are nearly a match for this thousand-headed monster of disease, in all its different developments and forms. I have registered my'experience on this subject in the book entitled The Coronic Diseases (4 vols.; Dresden, Arnold. [2nd edit. Diisseldorf, Schaub.]) Before I had obtained this knowledge, I could only teach how to treat the 184 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. hysteria, hypochondriasis, mania, melancholia, imbecility, madness, epilepsy, and convulsions of all sorts, of softening of the bones (rachitis) scoliosis and cyphosis, caries, cancer, fungus huematodes, malignant organic growths, gout, hemorrhoids, jaundice, cyanosis, dropsy, amenorrhoea, huemorrhage from the stomach, nose, lungs, bladder, and womb, of asthma and ulceration of the lungs, of impotence and barrenness, of megrim, deafness, cataract, amaurosis, urinary calculus, paralysis, defects of the senses, and pains of thousands of kinds, &c., figure in systematic works on pathology as peculiar independent diseases. whole number of chronic diseases, as separate, single individuals, with those medicinal substances whose pure effects had been tested on healthy persons up to that period, so that every case of chronic disease was treated by my disciples according to the group of symptoms it presented, just like a disease having a peculiar character of its own, and was so far cured, that sick mankind rejoiced at the extensive remedial treasures already amassed by the new healing art. How much greater cause is there now for rejoicing, that the desired goal has been so much more nearly attained, inasmuch as the recently discovered and far more specific homceopathic remedies for chronic affections arising from psora (which should properly be termed antipsoric remedies), and the special instructions for their preparation and employment, have been published, and from among them the true physician can now select for his curative agents, those whose medicinal symptoms correspond in the most similar (homceopathic) manner to the chronic diseases he has to cure, and thus, from the employment of medicines more suitable to this miasm, he is enabled to be of more essential service, and almost invariably to effect perfect cures. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 185 ~ LXXXI. The fact that this extremely ancient infecting agent has gradually passed, in several hundreds of generations, through many millions of human organisms, and has thus attained an incredible development, renders it in some measure conceivable, how it can now display such innumerable morbid forms in the great family of mankind, particularly when we consider what a number of circumstances 1 are wont to contribute to the production of this great variety of chronic diseases (secondary symptoms of psora), in addition to the indescribable diversity of men in respect of their congenital corporeal constitutions, so that it is no wonder if such a variety of injurious agencies, acting from within and from without, and sometimes continually, on such a variety of organisms impregnated with the psoric miasm, should produce an innumerable variety of defects, injuries, derangements and sufferings, which have hitherto been treated of in the 1 Some of these causes that exercise a modifying influence on the transformation of psora into chronic diseases, manifestly depend, sometimes on the climate and the peculiar physical character of the place of abode, sometimes on the very great varieties in the corporeal and mental education of the youth, both of which may have been neglected, delayed, or carried to too great an extent, or on improper employment or circumstances of life, dietetic regimen, passions, manners, habits and customs of various kinds. 186 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. old pathological works,' under a number of special names, as diseases of an independent character. ~ LXXXII. Although, by the discovery of that great source of chronic diseases, as also by the discovery of the specific homoeopathic remedies for the psora, medicine 1 How many improper, ambiguous names do not these works contain, under each of which is included excessively different morbid conditions, which often resemble each another in one symptom only, as, ague, jaundice, dropsy, consumption, leucorrhwa, hcemorrhoids, rheumatism, apoplexy, convulsions, hysteria, hypochondriasis, melancholia, mania, quinsy, palsy, &c., which are represented as diseases of a fixed and unvarying character, and are treated, from their name, according to a determinate plan! How can a fixed plan of medical treatment for a mere name of disease be justified? And if the treatment is not always to be the same, why make use of an identical name which presupposes an identity of treatment? "Nihil sane in artem medicam pestiferum magis unquam irrepsit malum, quam generalia quaedam nomina morbis imponere iisque aptare velle generalem quandam medicinam," says Huxham, a man as enlightened as he was estimable on account of his conscientiousness (Op. phys. med., tom. i.). And in like manner Fritze laments (Annalen, i. p. 80) " that essentially different diseases are designated by the same name." Even those epidemic diseases, which certainly may be propagated in every separate epidemic by a peculiar contagious principle which remains unknown to us, are designated, in the old school of medicine, by particular names, just as if they were well-known fixed diseases, that invariably recurred under the same form, as, hospital fever, gaol fever, caml fever, putrid fever, bilious fever, nervous fever, mucous fever, although each epidemic of such erratic ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 187 has advanced some steps nearer to the knowledge of the nature of the majority of diseases it has to cure, yet for constructing the indication in each case of fevers exhibits itself at every occurrence as another, a new disease, such as it has never exactly been before, differing very much, in every instance, in its course, as well as in several of its most striking symptoms and its whole appearance. Each is so far dissimilar to all previous epidemics, whatever names they may bear, that it would be a dereliction of all logical accuracy in our ideas of things, were we to give to these maladies, that differ so much among themselves, one of those names introduced into pathological writings, and treat them all medicinally in conformity with this misused name. The candid Sydenham alone perceived this, when he (Obs. med. cap. 2, De morb. epid.) insists upon the necessity of not considering any disease as having occurred before, and treating it in the same way as another, as all that occur successively, be they ever so numerous, differ among each other: " Nihil quicquam (opinor,) animum universae qua patet medicinae pomoeria perlustrantem, tanta admiratione percellet, quam discolor illa et sui plane dissimilis morborum Epidemicorum facies; non tam qua varias ejusdem anni tempestates, quam qua discrepantes diversorum ab invicem annorum constitutiones referunt, ab iisque dependent. Quae tam aperto praedictorum morborum diversitas tum propriis ac sibi peculiaribus symptomatis, tum etiam medendi ratione quam hi ab illis disparem prorsus sibi vendicant, satis illucescit. Ex quibus constat morbus hosce, ut ut externa quadantenus specie, et symptomatis aliquot utrisque pariter supervenientibus, convenire paulo incautioribus videantur, re tamen ipsa (si bene adverteris animum,) alienae admodum esse indolis, et distare ut aera lupinis." From all this, it is clear that these useless and misused names of diseases ought to have no influence on the practice of the true physician, who knows that he has to judge of and to cure diseases, not according to the similarity of the name of a single one of their 188 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. chronic (psoric) disease, the duty of a careful apprehension of its discoverable symptoms and characteristics is as indispensable for the homoeopathic physician, as it was before that discovery, as no real cure of this, or of other diseases can take place without a strict particular treatment (individualization) of each case of disease-only, that in this investigation some difference is to be observed when the affection is an acute and rapidly developed disease, and when it is a chronic one; as in acute disease, the chief symptoms occur more rapidly, and become evident to the senses, and hence much less time is requisite for tracing the picture of the disease, and much fewer questions are required to be asked,1 as almost every thing is apparent, than in a chronic disease which has been symptoms, but according to the sum total of all the signs of the individual state of each particular patient, whose affection it is his duty carefully to investigate, but never to give a hypothetical guess at it. If, however, it is deemed necessary sometimes to make use of names of diseases, in order, when talking about a patient to ordinary persons, to render ourselves intelligible in few words, we ought only to employ them as collective names, and tell them, e. g., the patient has a kind of St. Vitus' dance, a kind of dropsy, a kind of typhus, a kind of ague; but (in order to do away at once with the mistaken notions these names give rise to) we should never say he has the St. Vitus' dance, the typhus, the dropsy, the ague, as there are certainly no diseases of these and similar names, of fixed, unvarying character. SHence the following directions for investigating the symptoms are only partially applicable for acute diseases. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 189 gradually advancing for several years, in which the symptoms are much more difficult to be ascertained. ~ LXXXIII. This individualizing examination of a case of disease, for which I only give in this place general directions, of which the practitioner will bear in mind only what is applicable for each individual case, demands of the physician nothing but an unprejudiced judgment and sound sense, attention in observing and fidelity in tracing the picture of the disease. ~ LXXXIV. The patient details the history of his sufferings; those about him give an account of his complaints, his conduct, and what they have noticed in him; the physician sees, hears and remarks by his other senses what there is of an altered or unusual character about him. He writes down accurately all that the patient and his friends have told him in the very expressions used by them. Silently, and if possible, without interrupting them,2 he lets them say all they have to observe, when they do not wander to other subjects. The physician advises them at the commence2 Every interruption breaks the train of thought of the narrators, and all they would have said at first does not again occur to them in precisely the same manner after that. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 191 was it worst, or did it cease entirely? What was the exact nature of this or that symptom or circumstance mentioned-described in plain words? ~ LXXXVII. And thus the physician obtains more precise information respecting each particular detail, but without ever framing his questions so as to suggest the answer to the patient,' so that he shall only have to answer yes or no; else he will be misled to answer in the affirmative or negative something untrue, half true, or not strictly correct, either from indolence or in order to please his interrogator, from which a false picture of the disease and an unsuitable mode of treatment must result. ~ LXXXVIII. If in these voluntary details nothing has been mentioned respecting several parts or functions of the body, or respecting the mental state, the physician asks what more can be told in regard to these parts and these functions or mental state,2 but in doing this 1 For instance, the physician should not ask, Was not this or that circumstance present? He should never be guilty of making such suggestions, which tend to seduce the patient into giving a false answer and a false account of his symptoms. 2 For example: How is it with the motions? How is it with the urinary discharge? How with the sleep, by day, by night? In what state are his disposition, his humour, his intellectual faculties? How is it with the thirst? What sort of taste has he in his mouth? 192 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. he only makes use of general expressions, in order that his informants may be obliged to enter into special details concerning them. ~ LXXXIX. When the patient (for with regard to his sensations, it is to him we are to give most credit, except in the case of feigned diseases) has by these details furnished voluntarily and at the mere enquiry of the interrogator, the requisite information, and traced a tolerably perfect picture of the disease for the physician, the latter is at liberty, and obliged (if he feels he has not yet gained all the requisite information) to ask more precise, more special questions.' What aliments and drinks does he most affect? 'What are most repugnant to him? Has each its full natural taste, or some other unusual taste? How does he feel after eating or drinking? Is there anything else to be told about the head, the limbs, or the abdomen? 1 For example: How often are his bowels moved? What is the exact character of the motions? Did the whitish evacuation consist of mucus or faeces? Had he or had he not pains during the evacuation? What was their exact character, and where were they seated? What did the patient vomit? Is the bad taste in the mouth putrid, or bitter, or sour, or what, before or after eating, or during the repast? At what period of the day was it worst? What is the taste of what is eructated? Does the urine become turbid on standing, or is it turbid when first discharged? What is its colour when first emitted? Of what colour is the sediment? How does he conduct himself during sleep? does he whine, moan, talk or cry out in his sleep? does he start during sleep? does lie snore during inspiration, or during expiration? Does he lie only on his back, or on which side? ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 193 ~ XC. When the physician has finished writing down these particulars, he then makes a note of what he himself observes in the patient,' and ascertains how much of that was peculiar to the patient in his healthy state. Does he cover himself well up, or can he not bear the clothes on him? Does he easily awake, or does he sleep too soundly I How does he feel immediately after waking from sleep? How often does this or that symptom occur? what is the cause that produces it each time it occurs? does it come on whilst sitting, lying, standing, or when in motion? only when fasting, or in the morning, or only in the evening, or only after a meal, or when does it usually appear?When did the rigor come on? was it merely a chilly sensation, or was he actually cold at the same time? if so, in what parts? or while feeling chilly, was he actually warm to the touch? was it merely a sensation of cold, without shivering? was he hot, without redness of the face? what parts of him were hot to the touch? or did he complain of heat, without being hot to the touch? how long did the rigor last? how long the hot stage?-When did the thirst come on? during the cold stage? during the heat? or previous to it? or subsequently to it? How great was the thirst, and what was the beverage desired?-When did the sweat come on? at the beginning or the end of the heat? or how many hours after the heat? when asleep or when awake? how great was the sweat? warm or cold? on what parts? of what smell?-What does he complain of before or during the cold stage? what during the hot stage? what after it? what during or after the sweating stage? &c. SFor example: How the patient behaved during the visit? whether he was morose, quarrelsome, hurried, disposed to weep, anxious, despairing or sad, or hopeful, calm, &c.? Whether he was in a state of stupor, or unconscious? whether he spoke hoarsely, or in a low tone, or incoherently, or how otherwise did he talk? what was 0 ORGANON OF MEDICINE1 195 ~ XCII. But if it be a disease of a rapid course, and if its serious character admit of no delay, the physician must content himself with observing the morbid condition, altered though it may be by medicines, if he cannot ascertain what symptoms were present before the employment of the medicines,~-in order that lie may, at least, form a just apprehension of the complete picture of the disease in its actual condition, that is to say, of the conjoint malady formed by the medicinal and original diseases, which from the use of inappropriate drugs, is generally more serious and dangerous than was the original disease, and hence demands prompt and effcient aid; and by thus tracing out the complete picture of the disease he will be enabled to combat it with a suitable homceopathic remedy, so that the patient shall not fall a sacrifice to the injurious drugs he has swallowed. ~ XCIII. If the disease have been brought on a short time, or in the case of a chronic affection, a considerable time previously, by some obvious cause, then the patientor his friends whenl questioned privately-will mention it either spontaneously or when carefully interrgtd1 'Any causes of a disgraceful character, which the patient or his friends do not like to confess, at least not -voluntarily, the physician must endeavour to learn' by skilfully framing, his questions, or by o2 196 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ XCIV. While enquiring into the state of chronic diseases, the particular circumstances of the patient with regard to his ordinary occupations, his usual mode of living and diet, his domestic situation, and so forth, must be well considered and scrutinized, to ascertain what there is in them that may tend to produce or to maintain disease, in order that by their removal the recovery may be promoted., private information. To these belong, poisoning or attempted suicide, onanism, indulgence in ordinary or unnatural debauchery, excesses in wine, cordials, punch, and other ardent beverages, or coffee,over-indulgence in eating generally, or in some particular food of a hurtful character,-infections with syphilis or itch, unfortunate love, jealousy, domestic infelicity, vexation, grief at some family misfortune, ill-usage, suppressed revenge, injured pride, embarrassment of a pecuniary nature,-superstitious fear,-hunger,-or an imperfection in the private parts, a rupture, a prolapsus, and so forth. 1 In chronic diseases of females it is especially necessary to pay attention to pregnancy, sterility, sexual desire, accouchements, miscarriages, suckling, and the state of the menstrual discharge. With respect to the latter, more particularly, we should not neglect to ascertain if it recurs at too short intervals, or is delayed beyond the proper time, how many days it lasts, whether its flow is continuous or interrupted, what is its general quantity, how dark is its colour, whether there is leucorrhoea (whites) before its appearance or after its termination, but especially by what bodily and mental ailments, what sensations and pains, it is preceded, accompanied or followed; if there is leucorrhcea, what is its nature, what sensations attend its flow, in what quantity it is, and what are the conditions and causes under which it occurs? ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 197 ~ xcv. The investigation of the signs of disease above mentioned, and of all others, must be pursued in the case of chronic diseases as carefully and circumstantially as possible, and the most minute peculiarities must be attended to, partly because in these diseases they are the most characteristic and least resemble those of acute diseases, and if a cure is to be effected they cannot be too accurately noted; partly because the patients become so used to their long sufferings, that they pay little or no heed to the lesser accessory symptoms, which are often very pregnant with meaning (characteristic)-often very useful in determining the choice of the remedy-and regard them almost as a necessary part of their condition, almost as health, the real feeling of which they have well nigh forgot in their sometimes fifteen or twenty years of suffering, and they can scarcely bring themselves to believe that these accessory symptoms, these greater or lesser deviations from the healthy state, can have any connexion with their principal malady. ~ XCVI. Besides this, patients themselves differ so much in their dispositions, that some, especially the so-called hypochondriacs and other persons of great sensitiveness and impatient of suffering, portray their symptoms in too vivid colours, and, in order to induce the 198 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. physician to give them relief, describe their ailments in exaggerated expressions.' ~ XCVII. Other individuals of an opposite character, however, partly from indolence, partly from false modesty, partly from a kind of mildness of disposition or weakness of mind, refrain from mentioning a number of their symptoms, describe them in vague terms, or allege some of them to be of no moment. ~ XCVIII. Now, as certainly as we should listen particularly to the patient's description of his sufferings and sensations, and attach credence especially to his own expressions, wherewith he endeavours to make us understand his ailments,-because in the mouths of his friends and attendants they are usually altered and erroneously stated,-so certainly, on the other S A pure fabrication of symptoms and sufferings will never be met with in hypochondriacs, even in the most impatient of them,a comparison of the sufferings they complain of at various times when the physician gives them nothing at all, or something quite unmedicinal, proves this plainly;-but we must deduct something from their exaggeration, at all events lay the strong character of their expressions to the account of their excessive sensibility, in which case this very exaggeration of their expressions when talking of their ailments, becomes of itself an important symptom in the list of features of which the portrait of the disease is composed. The case is different with insane persons and wilful feigners of disease. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 199 hand, in all diseases, but especially in the chronic ones, the investigation of their true, complete picture and its peculiarities, demands peculiar circumspection, tact, knowledge of human nature, caution in conducting the inquiry, and patience in an eminent degree. ~ XCIX. On the whole, the investigation of acute diseases, or of such as have existed but a short time, is much the easiest for the physician, because all the phenomena and deviations from the health that has been but recently lost, are still fresh in the memory of the patient and his fr-iends, still continue to be novel and striking. The physician certainly requires to know everything in such cases also; but he has much less to inquire into; they are for the most part spontaneously detailed to him. ~C. In investigating the totality of the symptoms of epidemic and sporadic diseases, it is very immaterial whether something similar ever appeared in the world before, under the same name. The novelty or peculiarity of a disease of that kind makes no difference either in the mode of examining or of treating it, as the physician must, under all circumstances, view the pure picture of every prevalent disease as if it were something new and unknown, and investigate it thoroughly for itself, if lie desires to practise medicine in a real and radical manner, 200 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. never substituting conjecture for actual observation, never taking for granted that the case of disease before him is already wholly or partially known, but always carefully examining it in all its phases; and this mode of procedure is all the more requisite in such cases, as a careful examination will shew that every prevailing disease is in many respects a phenomenon of a peculiar character, differing vastly from all previous epidemics, improperly denominated by the same appellation;-with the exception of those epidemics resulting from a contagious principle that always remains the same, such as small-pox, measles, and the like. ~CI. It may happen that in the first case of an epidemic disease that presents itself to the physician's notice, he does not at once obtain a knowledge of its complete picture, as it is only by a close observation of several cases of such collective diseases, that he can become conversant with the totality of their signs and symptoms. The carefully observing physician can, however, from the examination of the first one or two patients, often arrive so nearly at a knowledge of the true state, as to be able to form an idea of its characteristic features-and even then discover a suitable, homacopathically adapted remedy for it. ~ CII. In the course of writing down the symptoms of several cases of this kind, the sketch of the morbid 202 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. an acute character, the miasmatic chronic maladies, that always remain the same in their essential nature, and especially the psora, had to be investigated by me as to the whole sphere of their symptoms, in a much more minute manner than had ever been done before, for in them also one patient only exhibits a portion of their symptoms, a second, a third, and so on, suffer from some other symptoms, which also are but a (dissevered, as it were) portion of the totality of the symptoms which altogether constitute the entire extent of the same malady, so that the sum total of all the symptoms belonging to such a miasmatic, chronic disease, and especially to the psora, can only be ascertained from the observation of very many single patients affected with such chronic diseases, and without a complete survey and collective picture of these symptoms, the medicines capable of curing the whole malady homceopathically (to wit, the antipsorics) cannot be learned, and these medicines are, at the same time, the true remedies of the several patients suffering from the same chronic affections. ~ CIV. When the totality of the symptoms that chiefly mark and distinguish the case of disease, or, in other words, when the picture of the disease, whatever be from the subsequent cases, be enabled either to verify the suitable.ness of the medicine chosen, or to discover a more appropriate, ithe most appropriate homceopathic remedy. ORGANON OF MEDICINE., 205 healthy individual, must first have been observed as far as possible, before we can hope to be able to find among them, and to select, suitable homoeopathic remedies for the greater number of natural diseases. ~ CVII. If, in order to ascertain this, medicines be given to sick persons only, even though they be administered singly and alone, then little or nothing of a decided character is seen of their pure effects, as those peculiar alterations of the health, to be expected from the medicine, are mixed up with the symptoms of the disease, and can seldom be distinctly observed. ~ CVIII. There is therefore no other possible way, in which the peculiar effects of medicines on the health of individuals can be infallibly ascertained-there is no sure, no more natural way of accomplishing this object, than to administer the several medicines, experimentally, in small doses, to healthy persons, in order to ascertain what changes, symptoms, and signs of their influence, each individually produces on the health of the body and of the mind, that is to say, what elements of disease they are able and tend to produce,1 1 No single physician, as far as I know, during the previous two thousand five hundred years, thought of this so natural, so absolutely necessary, and only genuine mode of testing medicines for their pure, and peculiar effects in altering the health of man, in order to learn what morbid state each medicine is capable of curing, except the 206 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. since, as has been demonstrated (~ xxiv-xxvii) all the curative power of medicines is this power they possess of changing the state of man's health, and is ascertained by observation of the latter. ~ CIX. I was the first that opened up this path, which I have pursued with a perseverance that could only arise and be kept up by a perfect conviction of the great truth, fraught with such blessings to humanity, that it is only by the homceopathic employment of medicines,1 that the certain cure of human maladies is possible.2 great and immortal Albrecht von Haller. He alone, besides myself, saw the necessity of this (vide the Preface to the Pharmacopcea Helvet. Basil., 1771, fol. p. 12): "Nempe primum in corpore sano medela tentanda est, sine peregrina ulla miscela; odoreque et sapore ejus exploratis, exigua illius dosis ingerenda et ad omnes, quae inde contingunt, affectiones, quis pulsus, qui calor, quae respiratio, quaenain excretiones, attendendum. Inde ad ductum phaenomenorum, in sano obviorum, transeas ad experimenta in corpore aegroto, etc." But no one, not a single physician attended to or followed up this invaluable hint. 1 It is impossible that there can be another true, best method of curing dynamic diseases (i. e. all diseases not strictly surgical), besides homoeopathy, just as it is impossible to draw more than one straight line betwixt two given points. He who imagines that there are other modes of curing diseases besides it, could not have appreciated the fundamental character of homoeopathy nor practised it with sufficient care, nor could he ever have seen or read cases of properly performed homoopathic cures, nor, on the other hand, could lie have discerned the baselessness of all allopathic modes of ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 207 ~ CX. I saw, moreover, that the morbid lesions which previous authors had observed to result from medicinal substances when taken into the stomach of healthy persons, either by mistake or in order to produce death, or from some other cause, accorded very much with my own observations when experimenting with the same substances on myself and other healthy individuals. These authors give details of what occurred as histories of poisoning, and as proofs of the pernicious effects of these powerful substances, chiefly in order to warn others from their use, partly also for the sake of exalting their own skill, when under the use of the remedies they employed to combat these treating diseases and their bad or even dreadful effects, if, with such lax indifference, he places the only true healing art on an equality with those hurtful methods of treatment, or alleges them to be auxiliaries to homceopathy which it could not dispense with! My true, conscientious followers, the pure homceopathists, with their successful, almost never-failing, treatment, might teach these persons better. 2 The first fruits of these labours, as perfect as they could be at that time, I recorded in the Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis, sive in sano corpore humano observatis. Pt. I, II, Lipsihe, 8. 1805, ap. J. A. Barth; the more mature fruits in the Reine Arzneimittellekre. I. Th., dritte Ausg. II. Th., dritte Ausg. 1833. III. Th., zweite Ausg. 1825. IV. Th., zw. Ausg. 1825. V. Th., zw. Ausg. 1826. VI. Th., zw. Ausg. 1827; and in the second, third and fourth parts of: Die chironischen JIrankheiten 1828, 1830. Dresden bei Arnold. [2nd edit. with a fifth part, Diisseldorf bci Schaub. 1835, 1839.] 208 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. dangerous accidents, health was gradually restored; but partly also, in the cases when persons so affected died under their treatment, in order to seek their own justification in the dangerous character of these substances which they then termed poisons. None of these observers ever dreamed that the symptoms they recorded merely as proofs of the noxious and poisonous character of these substances, were sure revelations of the power of these drugs to extinguish curatively similar symptoms occurring in natural diseases, that these their pathogenetic phenomena were intimations of their homoeopathic curative action, and that the only possible way to ascertain their medicinal powers, is to observe these changes of health medicines are capable of producing in the healthy organism; for the pure, peculiar powers of medicines available for the cure of disease are to be learned neither by any ingenious a priori speculations, nor by the smell, taste or appearance of the drugs, nor by their chemical analysis, nor yet by the employment of several of them at one time in a mixture (prescription) in diseases; it was little suspected that these histories of medicinal diseases would one day furnish the first rudiments of the true, pure materia medica, which from the earliest times until now has consisted solely of false conjectures and inventions, that is to say, did not exist at all.' See what I have said on this subject in the " Examination of the sources of the ordinary Materia Medica," prefixed to the third part ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 209 ~ CXI. The agreement of my observations on the pure effects of medicines with these older ones-although they were recorded without reference to any therapeutic object-and even the concordance of these accounts with others of the same kind by different authors, must at once convince us that medicinal substances act, in the morbid changes they produce in the healthy human body, according to fixed, eternal laws of nature, and by virtue of these are enabled to produce certain, trustworthy morbid symptoms, each according to its own peculiar character. ~ CXII. In those older descriptions of the often dangerous effects of medicines ingested in such excessively large doses, we notice certain states that were produced, not at the commencement but towards the termination of those sad events, and which were of an exactly opposite nature to those that first appeared. These symptoms, the very reverse of the primary action (~ lxiii) or proper action of the medicines on the vital force, are the re-action of the vital force of the organism, its secondary action (~ Ixii-lxvii) of which there is seldom or never the least trace from experiments with moderate doses on healthy bodies, and from small doses none whatever. In the homoeoof my Reine ArzneimittellehJre. [Translated in the Brit. Jour. of Hommopathy, vol. vi. pp. 261, 424.] 210 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. pathic curative operation the living organism makes only as much reaction as is requisite to raise the health again to the normal healthy state (~ lxvii). ~ CXIII. The only exceptions to this are the narcotic medicines. As they, in their primary action, sometimes destroy the sensibility and sensation, sometimes the irritability, it frequently happens that in their secondary action, even from moderate experimental doses on healthy bodies, an increased sensibility (and a greater irritability) is observable. ~ CXIV. With the exception of these narcotic substances, in experiments with moderate doses of medicine on healthy bodies, we observe only their primary action, i. e. those symptoms wherewith the medicine alters the health of the human being and develops in him a morbid state of longer or shorter duration. ~ CXv. Among these symptoms, there occur in the case of some medicines, not a few which are partially, or in certain accessory circumstances, directly opposite to other symptoms that have previously appeared or may afterwards appear, but which are not, therefore, to be regarded as actual secondary action, or the pure reaction of the vital force, but which only represent ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 211 the alternating condition of the various paroxysms of action of the primary action; they are termed alternating actions. ~ CXVI. Some symptoms are produced more frequently, that is to say, in many individuals, others more rarely or in few persons, some only in very few healthy organisms. ~ CXVII. To the latter class belong the so-called idiosyncrasies, by which are meant peculiar corporeal constitutions, which, although otherwise healthy, possess a disposition to be brought into a more or less morbid state,1 by certain things which seem to produce no impression and no change in many other individuals. But this inability to make an impression on every one is only apparent. For as two things are required for the production of these as well as all other morbid alterations in the health of man, to wit, the inherent power of the influencing substance, and the capability of the vital force that animates the organism to be affected by it, the obvious derangements of health in the socalled idiosyncrasies cannot be laid to the account of Some few persons are apt to faint from the smell of roses, and to fall into many other morbid, and sometimes dangerous states from partaking of muscles, crabs, or the spawn of the barbel, from touching the leaves of some kinds of sumach, &c. P 2 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 213 ~ CXIX. As certainly as every species of plant differs, in its external form, mode of life and growth, in its taste and smell, from every other species and genus of plant, as certainly as every mineral and every salt differ from all others, as well in their external, as in their internal and chemical properties (which alone should have sufficed to prevent all confounding of one with another), so certainly do they all differ and diverge among themselves in their pathogeneticconsequently also in their therapeutic--effects.' Each of these substances produces alterations in the health of human beings in a peculiar, different, yet determinate manner, so as to preclude the possibility of confounding one with the other.2 1 Anyone who has a thorough knowledge of, and can justly estimate the remarkable manner in which the effects on the health of man of every single substance differ from those of every other, will readily perceive that among them there can be, in a medicinal point of view, no synonymous remedies whatever, no surrogates. It is only one who does not know the pure, positive effects of the different medicines, that can be so foolish as to endeavour to persuade-us, that one can serve in the stead of the other, and can, in the same disease, prove just as serviceable as the other. Thus do ignorant children confound the most essentially different things, because they scarcely know their external appearances, far less their value, their true importance, and their very dissimilar inherent properties. 2 If this be pure truth, as it most certainly is, then no physician, who would not be regarded as devoid of reason, and who would not act contrary to the dictates of his conscience, the sole arbiter of real worth, can henceforth employ in the treatment of diseases, any ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 215 on the healthy body, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of them, and to enable us to avoid any mistake in their employment in diseases, for it is only by a correct choice of them that the greatest of all earthly blessings, the health of the body and of the mind, can be rapidly and permanently restored. ~ CXXI. In proving medicines to ascertain their effects on the healthy body, it must be borne in mind, that the strong, heroic substances, as they are termed, are liable to produce changes in the health even of robust persons, and even in small doses. Those of milder power -must be given in these experiments in more considerable quantities; in order to observe the action of the very weakest, however, the subjects of experiment should be persons free from disease, and who are delicate, irritable and sensitive. ~ CXXII. In these experiments-on which depend the exactitude of the whole medical art, and the weal of all future generations of mankind-no other medicines should be employed, except such as are perfectly well known, and of whose purity, genuineness and energy we are thoroughly assured. ~ CXXIII. Each of these medicines must be taken in a perfectly simple, unadulterated form; the indigenous plants in ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 217 possible destitute of spices, of a purely nutritious and simple character, green vegetables,' roots, and all salads and herb soups, (which all, even when prepared for table, possess some disturbing medicinal qualities) should be avoided. The drinks are to be those usually partaken of, as little stimulating as possible.2 ~ CXXVI. The person who is proving the medicine, must during the whole time of the experiment avoid all excessive exertion of mind and body, all sorts of dissipation, and disturbing passions; he should have no urgent business to prevent him making his observations with due attention; he must do his best to direct most particular attention towards himself, and not be disturbed whilst so doing; his body must be in what is for him a good state of health, and he must possess a sufficient amount of intelligence to be able to express and describe his sensations in accurate terms. ~ CXXVII. The medicines must be tested on both males and females, in order to reveal the alterations of the health they produce, in reference to the sexual system. 1 Young green peas, green French beans, and in all cases carrots are allowable, as the least medicinal vegetables. 2 The subject of experiment must either be not in the habit of taking pure wine, brandy, coffee or tea, or he must have totally abstained for a considerable time previously from the use of these injurious beverages, some of which are stimulating, others medicinal. 218 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ CXXVIII. The most recent observations have shewn, that medicinal substances when taken in their crude state by the experimenter for the purpose of testing their peculiar effects, do not exhibit nearly the full amount of the powers that lie hidden in them, which they do when potentized by proper trituration and succussion, and then taken for the same object, by which simple operations, the powers which in their crude state lay hidden, and as it were, dormant, are developed to an incredible extent and roused into activity. In this manner we now find it best to investigate the medicinal powers even of such substances as are deemed weak, and the plan we adopt is to give to the experimenter, on an empty stomach, daily from four to six very small globules of the thirtieth dilution of such a substance, moistened with a little water, and let him continue this for several days. ~ CXXIX. If the effects that result from such a dose are but slight, a few more globules, daily, may be taken, until they become more distinct and stronger and the alterations of the health more apparent; for all persons are not affected by a medicine in an equally great degree; on the contrary, there is a vast variety on this point, so that an apparently weak individual may be scarcely at all affected by moderate doses of a medicine known to be of a powerful character, whilst he is violently enough acted on by many others ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 219 of a much weaker nature. And, moreover, there are very robust persons who experience very considerable morbid symptoms from an apparently mild medicine, and only slighter symptoms from stronger drugs. Now as this cannot be known beforehand, it is advisable to commence in every instance with a small dose of the drug, and where suitable and necessary, to increase the dose more and more from day to day. ~ CXXX. If, at the very commencement, the first dose administered shall have been sufficiently strong, this advantage is gained, that the experimenter learns the order of succession of the symptoms, and can note accurately the period at which each occurs, which is very useful in leading to a knowledge of the genius of the medicine, for then the order of the primary actions, as also that of the alternating actions, is observed in the most unambiguous manner. A very moderate dose even, often suffices for the experiment, provided the experimenter be only endowed with feelings of sufficient delicacy, and be very attentive to his sensations. The duration of the action of a drug can only be ascertained by comparing several experiments. ~ CXXXI. If, however, in order to ascertain anything at all, the same medicine must be given to the same person to test for several successive days in ever increasing doses, we thereby learn, no doubt, the various morbid 220 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. states that this medicine is capable of producing in a general manner, but we do not ascertain their order of succession, and the subsequent dose often removes, curatively, some one or other of the symptoms caused by the previous dose, or develops in its stead an opposite state,-such symptoms should be enclosed in brackets, to mark their ambiguity, until succeeding, purer experiments shew whether they are the reaction of the organism and secondary action, or an alternating action of this medicine. ~ CXXXII. But when the object is, without reference to the sequential order of the phenomena, and the duration of the action of the drug, only to ascertain the symptoms themselves, especially those of a weak medicinal substance, in that case the preferable course to pursue, is to give it every day in increasing doses. In this manner the action of an unknown medicine, even of the mildest nature, will be revealed, especially if tested on sensitive persons. ~ CXXXIII. On experiencing any particular sensation from the medicine, it is useful, indeed necessary, in] order to determine the exact character of the symptom, to assume various positions while it lasts, and'to observe whether, by moving the part affected, by walking in the room or the open air, by standing, sitting or lying, the symptom is increased, diminished, or removed, 222 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. suitable persons of both sexes, and of various constitutions. We can only be assured that a medicine has been thoroughly proved in regard to the morbid states it can produce, that is to say, in regard to its pure powers of altering the health of man, when subsequent experimenters can notice little of a novel character from its action, and almost always perceive in their own persons only the same symptoms as had been already observed by others. ~ CXXXVI. (Although, as has been said, a medicine, on being proved on healthy subjects, cannot develop in one person all the alterations of health it is capable of causing, but can only do this when given to many different individuals, varying in their corporeal and mental constitution, yet the disposition (tendency) to excite all these symptoms in every human being, exists in it (~ cxvii), according to an eternal and immutable law of nature, agreeably to which all its actions, even those that are but rarely developed in the healthy person, are brought into operation in the case of every individual, if administered to him when he is in a morbid state presenting similar symptoms; it then, even in the smallest dose, if homceopathically selected, silently produces in the patient an artificial state closely resembling the natural disease, which rapidly and permanently (homceopathically) frees and cures him of his original malady.) ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 225 minute details so acquired, or to make such alterations in it as the experimenter may suggest.' ~ CXL. If the person cannot write, the physician must learn from him every day what has occurred to him and how it took place. What is noted down as authentic information on this point, however, must be chiefly the voluntary narrative of the person who makes the experiment, nothing conjectural, and as little as possible derived from answers to leading questions should be admitted, everything must be ascertained with the same caution as I have counselled above (~ lxxxiv--xcix) for the investigation of the phenomena and for tracing the picture of natural diseases. ~ CXLI. But the best provings of the pure effects of simple medicines in altering the human health, and of the artificial diseases and symptoms they are capable of developing in the healthy individual, are those which the healthy, unprejudiced and sensitive physician institutes on himself with all the caution and care Slie who makes known to the medical world the results of such experiments, becomes thereby responsible for the trustworthiness of the person experimented on and his statements, and justly so, as the weal of suffering humanity is here at stake. 226 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. here enjoined. He knows with the greatest amount of certainty what he has observed on himself.' 1 These trials, made by the physician on himself, have for him other and inestimable advantages. In the first place, the great truth, that the medicinal virtue of all drugs, whereon depends their curative power, lies in the changes of health such as those he has himself undergone from the medicines he has proved, and the morbid states like those he has himself experienced from them, attains in his mind the certainty of an incontrovertible fact. Again, by such remarkable observations on himself, he will be brought to understand his own sensations, his mode of thinking, and his disposition (the foundation of all true wisdom: vt,^0o. ceavwov), and he will be also trained to be, what every physician ought to be, a good observer. All our obserservations on others are not nearly so attractive as those made on ourselves. The observer of others must always dread, lest the experimenter did not feel exactly what he said, or lest he did not describe his sensations with the most appropriate expressions. He must always remain in doubt whether or no the experimenter was deceived, at least to some extent. These obstacles to the knowledge of the truth, which can never be thoroughly surmounted in our investigations of the artificial morbid symptoms that occur in others from the ingestion of medicines, cease entirely when we make the trials on ourselves. He who makes these trials on himself, knows for certain what he has felt, and each of these trials on himself is a new inducement for him to investigate the powers of other medicines; and he thus becomes more and more practised in the art of observing, of such importance to the physician, by continuing to observe himself, the one on whom he can most rely, and who will never deceive him, and this he will do all the more zealously, as these experiments on himself promise to give him a knowledge of the true value and importance of the instruments that are yet in a certain sense awanting for effecting cures. Let it not be imagined that such slight indispositions caused by taking medicines for the purpose of proving ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 227 ~ CXLII. But how some symptoms' of the simple medicine employed for a curative purpose, can be discovered even amid the symptoms of the original malady in diseases, especially in those of a chronic character that usually remain unaltered, is a subject for the exercise of the higher order of inductive minds, and must be left solely to masters in observation. ~ CXLIII. If we have thus tested on the healthy individual a considerable number of simple medicines, and carefully and faithfully registered all the elements of disease and symptoms they are capable of producing as artificial morbific potencies, then only have we a true materia medica-a collection of real, pure, faithful2 them can be in the main injurious to the health. Experience shews, on the contrary, that the organism of the experimenter becomes, by these frequent attacks on his health, all the more expert in repelling all external influences inimical to his frame, and all artificial and natural morbific noxious agents, and becomes more hardened to resist everything of an injurious character, by means of these moderate experiments on his own person with medicines. His health becomes more unalterable; he becomes more robust, as all experience shews. 1 Symptoms which, during the whole course of the disease, might have been observed only a long time previously, or never before, consequently new ones, belonging to the medicines. 2 Latterly it has been the habit to entrust the proving of medicines to unknown persons at a distance, who were paid for their work, and the information so obtained was printed. But by so doing, the Q 2 228 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. effects of simple medicinal substances, a volume of the book of nature, wherein is recorded a considerable array of the peculiar changes of the health and symptoms effected by each of the powerful medicines thus investigated, as they were revealed to the attention of the observer, in which the likeness of the (homoeopathic) morbid elements of many natural diseases to be hereafter cured by them are present, which, in a word, contain artificial morbid states, that furnish for the similar natural morbid states the only true, homceopathic, that is to say, specific, therapeutic instruments for effecting certain and permanent cure. ~ CXLIV. From such a materia medica everything that is conjectural, all that is mere assertion, or imaginary, should be strictly excluded; everything should be the pure language of nature carefully and honestly interrogated. ~ CXLV. Of a truth, it is only by a very considerable store of medicines accurately known in respect of these their pure modes of action in altering the health of man, operation which is of all others the most important, which is to form the basis of the only true healing art, and which demands the greatest moral certainty and trustworthiness, seems to me, I regret to say, to become doubtful and uncertain in its results, and to lose all its value. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 229 that we can be placed in a position to discover a homoeopathic remedy, a suitable analogue of an artificial morbific (curative) agent for each of the infinitely numerous morbid states in nature, for every malady in the world.' In the meantime, even now-thanks to the truth of the symptoms, and to the abundance of elements of disease which every one of the powerful medicinal substances has already shewn in its action on the healthy body-but few diseases remain, for which a pretty suitable homceopathic remedy may not be met with among those now proved in regard to their pure action,2 which, without particular disturbance, restores health in a gentle, sure and permanent manneriinfinitely more surely and safely than can be effected by all the general and special therapeutics of the old allopathic medical art with its unknown, composite remedies, which do but alter and aggravate chronic diseases, but cannot cure them, and rather retard than promote recovery from acute diseases. SAt first I was the only person who made the proving of the pure powers of medicines the most important of his occupations. Since then I have been assisted in this by some young men, who instituted experiments on themselves, and whose observations I have critically revised. But what shall we not be able to effect in the way of curing, in the vast extent of the infinitely large domain of disease, when numbers of accurate and trustworthy observers shall have rendered their services in enriching this, the only true materia medica, by carefuil experiments on themselves! The art of healing will then come near the mathematical sciences in certainty. 2 See the third note to ~ cix. 230 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ CXLVI. The third point of the vocation of a true physician relates to the judicious employment of the artificial morbific potencies (medicines) that have been proved on healthy individuals to ascertain their pure action, in order to effect the homosopathic cure of natural diseases. ~ CXLVII. Whichever of these medicines that have been investigated relative to their power of altering man's health, we find to contain in the symptoms observed from its use, the greatest similarity to the collective symptoms of a given natural disease, this medicine will and must be its most suitable, its most certain homccopathic remedy; in it is found the specific remedy of this case of disease. ~ CXLVIII. A medicinal substance so discovered, which has the power and the tendency to produce symptoms the most similar possible to the disease to be cured, consequently a similar artificial disease, given in a suitable dose, affects, in its dynamic action on the morbidly deranged vital force of the individual, those very parts and points in the organism hitherto suffering from the natural disease, and produces in them its own artificial disease, which on account of its great similarity and preponderating strength, occupies the place more particularly of the natural morbid derange 232 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. a bad character and accompanied by many sufferings, subsides in an unobservable manner, in a few hours if it be of recent date, in a few days if it be of somewhat longer standing, with all traces of indisposition, and nothing or almost nothing more of the artificial medicinal disease is observed; there occurs, by rapid, imperceptible transitions, nothing but restored health, recovery; diseases of long standing (and especially such as are of a complicated character) require for their cure a proportionately longer time. More espeimperfection consists in this, that the most suitable homoeopathic remedy for each morbid condition, does not spontaneously fly into their mouths like roasted pigeons, without any trouble on their own part)? They know, however, from frequent practice, how to make up for the inefficiency of the scarcely half homoeopathic remedy, by the employment of allopathic means, that come much more handy to them, among which one or more dozens of leeches applied to the affected part, or little, harmless venesections to the extent of eight ounces, and so forth, act an important figure; and should the patient, in spite of all this, recover, they extol their venesections, leeches, &c., alleging, that had it not been for these, the patient would not have been brought through, and they give us to understand, in no doubtful language, that these operations, derived, without much exercise of genius, from the pernicious routine of the old school, in reality contributed the best share towards the cure; but if the patient die under the treatment, as not unfrequently happens, they seek to console the friends by saying that " they themselves were witnesses that everything conceivable had been done for the lamented deceased." Who would do this frivolous and pernicious tribe the honour to call them after the name of the very laborious, but salutary art, homwoopathic physicians? May the just recompense await them, that, when taken ill, they may be treated in the same manner! ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 233 cially do the chronic medicinal maladies so often produced by allopathic bungling, along with the natural disease left uncured by it, require a much longer time for their recovery; often indeed are they incurable, in consequence of the shameful robbery of the patient's strength and juices, the principal feat performed by allopathy in its so-called cures. ~ U'. CL. If a patient complain of one or two trivial symptoms, that have been only observed a short time previously, the physician should not regard this as a fully developed disease that requires serious medical aid. A slight alteration in the diet and regimen will usually suffice to dispel such an indisposition. ~ CLI. But if the patient complain of a few violent sufferings, the physician will usually find, on investigation, several other symptoms besides, although of a slighter character, which furnish a complete picture of the disease. ~ CLII. The worse the acute disease is, of so much the more numerous and striking symptoms is it composed, but with so much the more certainty may a suitable remedy for it be found, if there be a sufficient number of medicines known, with respect to their positive action, to choose from. Among the lists of symptoms 234 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. of many medicines, it will not be difficult to find a medicine from whose separate elements of disease an antitype of curative artificial disease, very like the sum total of the symptoms of the natural disease, may be constructed, and such a medicine is the desirable remedy. ~ CLIII. In this search for a homccopathic specific remedy, that is to say, in this comparison of the collective symptoms of the natural disease with the lists of symptoms of known medicines, in order to find among these an artificial morbific potency corresponding by similarity to the disease to be cured, the more striking, singular, uncommon, and peculiar (characteristic) signs and symptoms 1 of the case of disease, are chiefly and almost solely to be kept in view; for it is more particularly these that very similar ones in the list of symptoms of the medicine sought for must correspond to, in order to constitute that medicine the most suitable for effecting the cure. The more general and undefined symptoms, loss of appetite, headache, debility, restless 1 Dr. von Bonninghausen, who has already distinguished himself by his labours in connexion with the new system of medicine, has lately added to his merit by displaying the characteristic symptoms, more particularly of the antipsoric medicines, in his valuable little book, Uebersichlt der lHacutwirkungs-Sphlire der antips. Arz., Miinster, bei Coppenrath, 1833, and in the appendix thereto (containing the antisyphilitic and antisycotic medicines) at the end of the second edition of his Systematisch-alplabetisches Rep)ertorium der antipsorischen Arzneien, bei Coppenrath in Miinster. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 235 sleep, discomfort, and so forth, demand but little attention when of that vague and indefinite character, if they cannot be more accurately described, as symptoms of such a general nature are observed in almost every disease and from almost every drug. ~ CLIV. If the antitype composed from the list of symptoms of the most suitable medicine contain those peculiar, uncommon, singular, and distinguishing (characteristic) symptoms, which are to be met with in the disease to be cured, in the greatest number and in the greatest similarity, this medicine is the most appropriate homceopathic specific remedy for this morbid state; the disease, if it be not one of very long standing, will generally be removed and extinguished by the first dose of it, without any considerable disturbance. ~ CLV. I say without any considerable disturbance. For, in the employment of this most appropriate homceopathic remedy it is only the symptoms of the medicine that correspond to the symptoms of the disease that are called into play, the former occupying the place of the latter (weaker) in the organism, and thereby annihilating them by superiority of power; but the other symptoms of the homoeopathic medicine, which are often very numerous, being in no way applicable to the case of disease in question, do not appear at all. The patient growing hourly better, feels almost ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 237 ~ CLVII. But though it is certain that a homoeopathically selected remedy does, by reason of its appropriateness and the minuteness of the dose, gently remove and annihilate the acute disease analogous to it, without giving expression to its other, unhomceopathic symptoms, that is to say, without the production of new, serious disturbances, yet it usually, immediately after ingestion-for the first hour, or for a few hourscauses a kind of slight aggravation (where the dose has been somewhat too large, however, for a considerable number of hours), which has so much resemblance to the original disease, that it seems to the patient to be an aggravation of his disease. But it is, in reality, nothing more than an extremely similar medicinal disease, somewhat exceeding in strength the original affection. ~ CLVIII. This slight homoeopathic aggravation during the first hours-a very good prognostication that the acute disease will most probably yield to the first dose-is quite as it ought to be, as the medicinal disease must naturally be somewhat stronger than the malady to be cured, if it is to overpower and extinguish the latter, just as a natural disease can remove and annihilate another one similar to it, only when it is stronger than the latter (~ xliii-xlviii). 238 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ CLIX. The smaller the dose of the homccopathic remedy is, so much the slighter and shorter is this apparent increase of the disease during the first hours. ~ CLX. But as the dose of a homoeopathic remedy can scarcely ever be made so small that it shall not be able to relieve, overpower, indeed completely cure and annihiliate the pure natural disease, of not very long standing, that is analogous to it (~ ccxlix, note), we can understand why a dose of an appropriate homoeopathic medicine, not the very smallest possible, does always, during the first hour after its ingestion, produce a perceptible homceopathic aggravation of this kind.' 1 This exaltation of the symptoms of the medicine over those symptoms of the disease analogous to them, which looks like an aggravation, has been observed by other physicians also, when chance threw in their way a hommeopathic remedy. When a patient suffering from itch complains of an increase of the eruption after sulphur, his physician, who knows not the cause of this, consoles him with the assurance, that the itch must first come out properly before it can be cured; he knows not, however, that this is a sulphur eruption, that assumes the appearance of an increase of the itch. " The facial eruption which the viola tricolor cured, aggravated it at the commencement of its action," Leroy assures us (Heilk. filr Miitter, p. 406), but he knew not that the apparent aggravation was owing to the somewhat too large dose of the remedy, which in this instance was to a certain extent homceopathic. Lysons says (Mcd. Transact. vol. ii, London, 1772), " The bark of the clm ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 239 ~ CLXI. When I here limit the so-called homoeopathic aggravation, or rather the primary action of the homoeopathic medicine that seems to increase in some degree the symptoms of the original disease, to the first, or few first hours, this is certainly true with respect to diseases of a more acute character and of recent origin; but where medicines of long action have to combat a malady of considerable or of very long standing, where one dose, consequently, must continue to act for many days, we then see, during the first six, eight, or ten days, occasionally some such primary actions of the medicine, some such apparent increase of the symptoms of the original disease (lasting for one or several hours) make their appearance, whilst in the intervening hours amelioration of the whole malady is perceptible. After the cures most certainly those skin diseases which it increases at the beginning of its action." Had he not given the bark in the monstrous doses usual in the allopathic system, but in the quite small doses requisite when there is a similarity of symptoms in the medicine, that is to say, when it is used homceopathically, he would have effected a cure without, or almost without, seeing this apparent increase of the disease (homoeopathic aggravation). If the action of those medicines to which the very longest duration of action is proper, quickly ex tires in acute diseases-most quickly in those that are most ac -e,-it is proportionately long lasting in chronic diseases (of pse ic origin), and hence it happens that the antipsoric medicines often do not shew any such homceopathic aggravation in the first hours, whilst they do so afterwards and during various hours, for the first eight or ten days. 240 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. lapse of these few days, the amelioration resulting from such primary action of the medicine proceeds almost uninterruptedly for several days longer. ~ CLXII. It sometimes happens, ozoing to the very moderate number of medicines yet known with respect to their true, pure action, that but a portion of the symptoms of the disease to be cured are to be met with in the list of symptoms of the most appropriate medicine, consequently this imperfect medicinal morbific agent must be employed for lack of a more perfect one. ~ CLXIII. In this case we cannot indeed expect from this medicine a complete, untroubled cure; for, during its use, some symptoms appear which were not previously observable in the disease, accessory symptoms of the not perfectly appropriate remedy. This does by no means prevent a considerable part of the disease (the symptoms of the disease that resemble those of the medicine) from being eradicated by this medicine, thereby establishing a fair commencement of the cure, but still this does not take place without those accessory symptoms, which are, however, always moderate when the dose of the medicine is sufficiently minute. ~ CLXIV. The small number of homoeopathic symptoms present in the best selected medicine, is no obstacle to ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 243 other for another part of the symptoms of the disease, it is not advisable, after the employment of the more suitable of two medicines, to administer the other without examination, for the medicine that seemed to be the next best, would not, under the change of circumstances that has in the mean time taken place, be suitable for the rest of the symptoms that then remain, in which case, consequently, a more appropriate homoeopathic remedy ought, to be selected in place of the second medicine, for the set of symptoms as they appear on a new inspection. ~ CLXX. Hence, in this as in every case where a change of the morbid state has occurred, the remaining set of symptoms that is present must be enquired into, and (without paying any attention to the medicine which at first appeared to be the next in point of suitableness) a homceopathic medicine, as appropriate as possible to the new state now before us, must be selected anew. If it should so happen, as is not often the case, that the medicine which at first appeared to be the next best, seems still to be well adapted for the morbid state that remains, so much the more will it merit our confidence, and deserve to be employed in preference to another. ~ CLXXI. In non-venereal chronic diseases, those therefore that arise from psora, we often require, in order to R 2 244 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. effect a cure, to give several antipsoric remedies in succession, every successive one being homoeopathically chosen in consonance with the group of symptoms we find to remain after the expiry of the action of the previous remedy (which may have been employed in a single dose or in several successive doses). ~ CLXXII. A similar difficulty in the way of the cure, occurs from the symptoms of the disease being too small in number, a circumstance that deserves our careful attention, for by its removal, almost all the difficulties that can lie in the way of this most perfect of all possible modes of treatment (except that its apparatus of known homoeopathic medicines is still incomplete), are removed. ~ CLXXIII. The only diseases that seem to have but few symptoms, and on that account to be less amenable to cure, are those which may be termed one-sided, because but one or two principal symptoms are prominent in them, and these throw almost all the others into the shade. They belong chiefly to the class of chronic diseases. ~ CLXXIV. Their principal symptom may be either an internal complaint (e. g. a headache of many years' duration,-a diarrhoea of long standing, an ancient cardialgia, &c.), or it may be an affection, more of an external kind. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 247 employed. They are derived from it' certainly, but they are always only symptoms of such a nature as this disease was itself capable of producing in this organism, and which were summoned forth and induced to make their appearance, by the medicine given-by reason of its power to cause similar symptoms. In a word, we have to regard the whole collection of symptoms now perceptible, as belonging to the disease itself, as the real existing condition, and to direct our further treatment accordingly. ~ CLXXXII. Thus the imperfect selection of the medicament, which was in this case almost inevitable, in consequence of the too limited number of the symptoms present, serves to complete the display of the symptoms of the disease, and in this way facilitates the discovery of a second, more accurately suitable, homccopathic medicine. ~ CLXXXIII. Whenever, therefore, the dose of the first medicine ceases to have a beneficial effect (if the newly developed symptoms do not, by reason of their violence, demand more speedy aid-which, however, from the When they were not caused by an important error in regimen, a violent emotion, or a tmnultuous revolution in the organism, such as the occurrence or cessation of the menses, conception, child-birth, and so forth. 248 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. minuteness of the dose of homoeopathic medicine, and in very chronic diseases, is excessively rare), a new examination of the disease must be instituted, the status morbi, as it now is, must be noted down, and a second homoeopathic remedy selected in accordance with it, which shall exactly suit the present state, and one which shall be all the more appropriate can then be found, as the group of symptoms has become larger and more complete.' ~ CLXXXIV. In like manner, after each new dose of medicine has exhausted its action, the state of the disease that still remains is to be traced anew by the remaining symptoms, and another homoeopathic remedy sought for, as suitable as possible for the group of symptoms now observed, and so on until the recovery is complete. ~ CLXXXV. Among the one-sided diseases, an important place is occupied by the so-called local maladies, by which 1 In cases where the patient (which, however, occurs excessively seldom in chronic, but not unfrequently in acute diseases) feels very ill, although his symptoms are very indistinct, so that this state may be attributed more to the benumbed state of the nerves, which does niot permit the patient's pains and sufferings to be distinctly perceived, this torpor of the internal sensific nerves is removed by opium, and in its secondary action the symptoms of the disease become distinctly apparent. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 249 term is signified those changes and affections that appear on the external parts of the body, which, as has hitherto been taught, were alone morbidly affected, without any participation on the part of the rest of the body-a theoretical, absurd assertion, which has led to the most disastrous medical treatment. ~ CLXXXVI. Those so-called local maladies which have been produced a short time previously, solely by an external injury, still appear at first to deserve the name of local diseases. But then the injury must be very trivial, and in that case it would be of no great moment. For injuries accruing to the body from without, if they be of any considerable degree, cause the whole living organism to sympathize; there occur fever, &c. The treatment of such diseases is assigned to surgery; but this is only right, in so far as the affected parts require mechanical aid, whereby the external obstacles to the cure, which can be expected to take place by the agency of the vital force alone, may be removed by mechanical means, e.g. by the reduction of dislocations, by bandages to bring together the lips of wounds, by the extraction of foreign bodies that have penetrated into the living parts, by making an opening into a cavity of the body in order to remove an irritating substance, or to procure the evacuation of effusions or collections of fluids, by bringing into apposition the broken extremities of a fractured bone, and retaining them in suitable contact 250 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. by an appropriate bandage, &c. But when in such injuries the whole living organism requires, as it always does, active dynamic aid, to put it in a position to accomplish the work of healing, e.g. when the violent fever resulting from extensive contusions, lacerated muscles, tendons and blood-vessels, requires to be removed by medicine given internally, or when the external pain of scalded or corroded parts needs to be homoeopathically subdued, then the services of the dynamic physician and his homoeopathic aid come into requisition. ~ CLXXXVII. But those affections, alterations and symptoms appearing on the external parts, that do not arise from any external injury, or that have only some slight external wound for their immediate exciting cause, are produced in quite another manner; their source lies in some internal malady. To consider them as mere local affections, and at the same time to treat them, only or almost only, with local applications, as it were, surgically, as the old school have done from the remotest ages, were as absurd as it were dangerous in its results. ~ CLXXXVIII. These affections were considered to be merely local, and were therefore called local diseases, as if they were maladies exclusively limited to those parts, ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 251 wherein the organism took little or no part, or affections of these particular visible parts, of which the rest of the living organism, so to speak, knew nothing.' ~ CLXXXIX. And yet very little reflexion will suffice to convince us that no external malady (not occasioned by some particular external injury) can, without some internal cause, without the co-operation of the whole organism (which must consequently be in a diseased state) arise, remain in its place, or even grow worse. It could not make its appearance at all, without the accord of the whole health, and without the participation of the rest of the living whole (of the vital force that pervades all the other sensitive and irritable parts of the organism); indeed, it is impossible to conceive its production without the instrumentality of the whole (deranged) life; so intimately are all parts of the organism connected together to form an inseparable whole in sensations and functions. No eruption on the lips, no whitlow can occur without previous and simultaneous internal ill-health. ~ CXC. All true medical treatment of a disease on the external parts of the body that has occurred from 1 One of the many pernicious, capital mistakes of the old school. 252 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. little or no injury from without, must, therefore, be directed to the whole, to the annihilation and cure of the general affection, by means of internal remedies, if it is wished that the treatment be judicious, safe, efficacious and radical. ~ CXCI. This is confirmed in the most unambiguous manner by experience, which shews in all cases, that every powerful internal medicine immediately after its ingestion causes important changes, as in the rest of the state of such a patient, so particularly in the affected external parts (which to ordinary medical science seem to be quite isolated), even in a so-called local disease of the most external parts of the body, and the change it produces is of the most salutary character, the recovery of the entire system, along with the disappearance of the external affection (without the aid of any external remedy), provided the internal remedy directed towards the whole state was suitably chosen in a homoeopathic point of view. ~ CXCII. This is best effected when, in the investigation of the case of disease, along with the exact character of the local affection, all the changes, sufferings and symptoms observable in the patient's health, and which may have been previously noticed, when no medicines had been used, are taken in conjunction, to form a complete picture of the disease, before ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 253 searching among the medicines known with regard to their peculiar pathogenetic effects for a remedy corresponding to this collection of symptoms, in order that the selection may be accurately homceopathic. ~ CXCIII. By means of this medicine, administered only internally (and if the disease be but of recent origin, often by the very first dose of it), the general morbid state of the body is removed along with the local affection, and the latter cured at the same time as the former, proving that the local affection depended solely and alone on a disease of the rest of the body, and should only be looked upon as an inseparable part of the whole, as one of the most considerable and striking symptoms of the whole disease. ~ CXCIV. It is not useful, either in acute local diseases of recent origin, or in local affections that have already existed a long time, to rub in or apply externally to the spot, an external remedy, even though it be the specific, and, when used internally, salutary by reason of its homoeopathicity, even although it should be at the same time administered internally; for the acute topical affections (e.g. inflammations of individual parts, erysipelas, &c.) which have not been caused by external injury of proportionate violence, but by dynamic or internal causes, yield most surely to internal remedies homoeopathically adapted to the 254 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. perceptible state of the health present in the exterior and interior, selected from the general store of proved medicines,' and generally without any other aid; but if these diseases do not yield to them completely, and if there still remain in the affected spot and in the whole state, notwithstanding good regimen, a relic of the disease which the vital force is not in a position to restore to the normal state, then the acute disease was (as not unfrequently happens) a product of psora which had hitherto remained latent in the interior, but has now burst forth and is on the point of developing itself into a manifest, chronic disease. ~ cxcv. In order to effect a radical cure in such cases, which are by no means rare, after the acute state has been tolerably removed, an appropriate antipsoric treatment (as is taught in my work on Chronic Diseases) must then be directed against the symptoms that still remain, together with the morbid state of health to which the patient was previously subject. In chronic local maladies, that are not evidently venereal, the antipsoric internal treatment is, moreover, alone requisite. ~ CXCVI. It might indeed seem, as though the cure of such diseases would be hastened, by employing the medi1 As for instance, aconite, rhus, belladonna, mercury, and so forth. 256 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. symptoms of chronic miasmatic diseases is for the-same reason quite inadmissible; for if the local affection of the chronic disease be only removed locally and in a one-sided manner, the internal treatment indispensable for the complete restoration of the health remains in dubious obscurity; the chief symptom (the local affection) is gone, and there remain only the other, less distinguishable symptoms, which are less constant and less persistent than the local affection, and frequently not sufficiently peculiar, and too slightly characteristic to display, after that, a picture of the disease in clear and perfect outlines. ~ CXCIX. If the remedy perfectly homoeopathic to the disease had not yet been discovered,' at the time when the local symptoms were destroyed by a corrosive or dessicative external remedy, or by the knife, then the case becomes much more difficult on account of the too indefinite (uncharacteristic) and inconstant appearance of the remaining symptoms, for what might have contributed most to determine the selection of the most suitable remedy, and its internal employment until the disease should have been completely annihilated, namely the external principal symptom, has been removed from our observation. ' As was the case before my time with the remedies for the sycotic disease (and the antipsoric medicines). ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 257 ~CC. Had it still been present to guide the internal treatment, the homoeopathic remedy for the whole disease might have been discovered, and had that been found, the persistence of the local affection during its internal employment would have shewn that the cure was not yet completed; but were it cured on its seat, this would be a convincing proof that the disease was completely eradicated, and the recovery from the entire disease had proceeded to the desired extent. An inestimable, indispensable advantage. ~ CCI. It is evident, that man's vital force when encumbered with a chronic disease which it is unable to overcome by its own powers, adopts the plan of developing a local malady on some external part, solely for this object, that by making and keeping in a diseased state this part which is not indispensable to human life, it may thereby silence the internal disease, which otherwise threatens to destroy the vital organs (and to deprive the patient of life), and that it may thereby, so to speak, transfer the internal disease to the vicarious local affection, and, as it were, lead it thither. The presence of the local affection thus silences, for a time, the internal disease, though without being able either to cure it or to diminish it materially.1 The local affection, howSThe issues of the old-school practitioners do something similar; as artificial ulcers on external parts, they silence some internal chronic s 258 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ever, is never anything else than a part of the general disease, but a part of it increased all in one direction by the organic vital force, and transferred to a less dangerous (external) part of the body, in order to allay the internal ailment. But (as has been said) by this local symptom that silences the internal disease, so far from anything being gained by the vital force towards diminishing or curing the whole malady, the internal disease, on the contrary, continues, in spite of it, gradually to increase, and nature is constrained to enlarge and aggravate the local symptom always more and more, in order that it may still suffice as a substitute for the increased internal disease, and may still keep it under. Old ulcers on the legs get worse whilst the internal psora is uncured, the chancre enlarges whilst the internal syphilis is still uneradicated, in proportion as the general internal disease increases with the lapse of time. ~ CCIT. If the old-school physician should now destroy the local symptom by the local use of external remedies, under the belief that he thereby cures the whole disease, nature makes up for its loss by rousing the internal malady, and the other symptoms that previously existed in a latent state along with the local affection, that is to say, by increasing the internal disease-in diseases, but only for a very short time, without being able to cure them; but on the other hand they weaken and destroy the general health much more than is done by most of the metastases effected by the instinctive vital force. 260 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. harrassing and pernicious treatment of often inconsiderable diseases by physicians of the old school, all the remainder, without exception, result from the development of these three chronic miasms, internal syphilis, internal sycosis, but chiefly, and in infinitely greater proportion, internal psora, each of which was already in possession of the whole organism, before the primary, vicarious local system of each of them (in the case of psora the scabious eruption, in syphilis the chancre or the bubo, and in sycosis the condylomata) that prevented them spreading internally, made its appearance; and these chronic miasmatic diseases, if deprived of their local symptom, are inevitably destined by mighty nature sooner or later to become developed and to burst forth, and thence propagate all the nameless misery, the incredible number of chronic diseases, which have plagued mankind for hundreds and thousands of years, none of which would so frequently have existed, had physicians striven in a rational manner to cure radically, and to extinguish in the organism these three miasms, by the internal homoeopathic medicines suited for each of them, without applying topical remedies to their external symptoms. ~ ccv. The homceopathic physician never treats one of these primary symptoms of chronic miasms, nor yet one of their secondary affections that result from their further development, by local remedies (neither by ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 261 those external agents that act dynamically,' nor yet by those that act mechanically), but he cures, in cases where the one or the other appears, only the great miasm on which they depend, whereupon its primary, as also its secondary symptoms disappear spontaneously; but as this was not the mode pursued by the homoeopathic physician's predecessors, and as he generally, alas! finds the primary symptoms2 already destroyed externally by the ordinary practitioners, he 1I cannot therefore advise, for instance, the local extirpation of the so-called cancer of the lips or face (the product of highly developed psora?) by means of the arsenical paste, not only because it is excessively painful, and often fails, but more for this reason, because, if this dynamic remedy should indeed succeed in freeing the affected part of the body from the malignant ulcer, locally, the fundamental malady is thereby not diminished in the slightest, the preserving vital force is therefore necessitated to transfer the field of operation for the great internal malady to some more important part (as it does in every case of metaschematism), and the consequence is blindness, deafness, insanity, suffocative asthma, dropsy, apoplexy, and so forth. But this ambiguous, local liberation of the part from the malignant ulcer, by the topical arsenical remedy, only succeeds, after all, in those cases where the ulcer has not yet attained any great size, and when the vital force is still very energetic; but it is just in such a state of things that the complete cure of the whole original disease is also still practicable. The result is the same when cancer of the face or breast is removed by the knife alone, and when encysted tumours are extirpated; something worse ensues, or at any rate death is hastened. This has been the case times without number, but the old school still goes blindly on in the same way in every new case, with equal want of success. 2 Itch eruption, chancre (bubo), condylomata..., 262 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. has now more to do with the secondary ones, i. e. the affections resulting from the breaking forth and development of these inherent miasms, but especially with the chronic diseases produced by internal psora, the internal treatment of which, as far as a single physician can elucidate it by many years of reflexion, observation and experience, I have endeavoured to point out in my work on Chronic Diseases, to which I must refer the reader. ~ CCVI. Before commencing the treatment of a chronic disease, the most careful investigation1 must necessarily be made, as to whether the patient has had a venereal infection (or an infection with condylomatous gonorrhoea); for the treatment must be directed towards this, when signs of syphilis only (or of the rare 1 In investigations of this nature we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the assertions of the patients or their friends, who frequently assign as the cause of chronic, even of the greatest and most chronic diseases, either a cold caught (a thorough wetting, drinking cold water after being heated) many years ago, or a former fright, a sprain, a vexation (sometimes even a bewitchment), &c., these causes are much too insignificant to develop a chronic disease in a healtly frame, to keep it up for years, and to aggravate it year by year, as is the case with all chronic diseases from developed psora. Causes of a much more important character than these remembered noxious influences, must lie at the root of the commencement and progress of a considerable, obstinate disease of long standing; the assigned causes could only rouse into activity the latent chronic i *? * *. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 263 condylomatous disease) are present, but this disease is but rarely met with alone now-a-days. If such infection have previously occurred, regard must also be paid to it in the treatment of those cases in which psora is present, because in them the latter is complicated with the former, as is always the case when the symptoms of syphilis are not pure; for when the physician thinks he has a case of old venereal disease before him, he has always, or almost always, to treat one accompanied by (complicated with) psora, chiefly, for the internal itch malady (the psora) is far the most frequent (most certain) fundamental cause of chronic diseases, either united (complicated) with syphilis (or even with sycosis), if the latter infections have avowedly occurred, or, as is much more frequently the case, psora is the sole fundamental cause of all the other chronic maladies, whatever names they may bear, which are, moreover, so often bungled, increased to a monstrous extent and disfigured by allopathic unskilfulness. ~ CCVII..-When the above information has been gained, it still remains for the homoeopathic physician to ascertain: what were the allopathic modes of treatment that had up to that date been adopted towards the patient affected by the chronic disease, what powerful medicines had been chiefly and most frequently employed, also what mineral baths had been used and their effects, in order to understand, in some measure, 264 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. the degeneration of the disease from its original state, and where possible, to correct in part these pernicious artificial operations, or to enable him to avoid the medicines that have already been improperly used. ~ CCVIII. The age of the patient, his mode of living and diet, his occupation, his domestic position, his social relations and so forth, must next be taken into consideration, in order to ascertain whether these things tend to increase his malady, or in how far they may favour or obstruct the treatment. In like manner the state of his disposition and mind must be attended to, to learn whether that presents any obstacle to. the treatment, or requires some psychical training, encouragement or modification. ~ CCIX. After this is done, the physician endeavours in various conversations with the patient to trace the picture of his disease as completely as possible, according to the directions given above, in order to be able to distinguish the most striking and peculiar (characteristic) symptoms, in accordance with which he selects the first antipsoric or other remedy having the greatest symptomatic resemblance, for the commencement of the treatment, and so forth. ~ CCX. Psora lies at the root of almost all those diseases, that I have above termed one-sided, which appear to ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 265 be more difficult to cure in consequence of this onesidedness, all their other morbid symptoms disappearing, as it were, before their single, great, prominent symptom. Of this character are what are termed mental diseases. They do not, however, constitute a class of disease distinctly separated from all others, since in all the other so-called corporeal diseases, the condition of the disposition and mind is always altered,1 and in all cases of disease we are called on to cure, the state of the patient's disposition is to be especially noted, along with the collective symptoms, if we would trace an accurate picture of the disease, in order to be able therefrom to treat it homocopathically with success. 1 How often, for instance, do we not meet with a mild, soft disposition in patients who have for years been afflicted with the most painful diseases, so that the physician feels constrained to esteem and compassionate the sufferer. But if he subdue the disease and restore the patient to health-as is frequently done in homaeopathic practice-he is often astonished and horrified at the frightful alteration in his disposition. He often witnesses the occurrence of ingratitude, cruelty, refined malice, and propensities most disgraceful and degrading to humanity, which were exactly the qualities possessed by the patient before he grew ill. Those who were patient when well, often become obstinate, violent, hasty, or even intolerant and capricious, or impatient or desponding; those formerly chaste and modest often become lascivious and immodest. A clear-headed person not unfrequently becomes obtuse of intellect, while one ordinarily weak-minded becomes more sage and thoughtful; and a man slow to make up his mind, sometimes acquires great presence of mind and quickness of resolve, &c. 266 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ CCXI. This holds good to such an extent, that the state of the disposition of the patient often gives the chief bias to the selection of the homoeopathic remedy, as it often consists in symptoms of marked peculiarity, which, amidst all those present, can least remain concealed from the accurately observing physician. ~ CCXII. The Creator of therapeutic agents has also bestowed particular attention on this main feature of all diseases, the altered state of the disposition and mind, for there is no powerful medicinal substance in the world which does not very perceptibly alter the state of the disposition and mind in the healthy individual who tests it, and every medicine does so in a different manner. ~ CCXIII. We shall, therefore, never be able to cure conformably to nature, that is to say, homaeopathically, if we do not, in every case of disease, even in such as are acute, observe, along with the other symptoms, those relating to the changes in the state of the mind and disposition, and if we do not select, for the patient's relief, from among the remedies, such a morbific agent, as, in addition to the similarity of its other symptoms to those of the disease, is also capable of producing a similar state of the disposition and mind.1 SThus, aconite will seldom or never effect either a rapid or per ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 267 ~ CCXIV. The instructions I can give relative to the cure of mental diseases, may be confined to a very few remarks, as they must be treated in the same way as all other diseases, namely, by a remedy which shews, in the symptoms it causes in the body and mind of a healthy individual, a power of producing a morbid state as similar as possible to the case of disease before us, and in no other way can they be cured. ~ ccxv. The so-called mental and moral diseases are all almost nothing more than corporeal diseases, in which the peculiar symptom of the derangement of the mind and disposition of each of them, is increased, the corporeal symptoms declining (more or less rapidly) the while-till it at length attains the most striking one-sidedness, almost as if it were a local disease in the invisible, subtile organ of the mind or disposition. ~ CCXVI. The cases are not rare in which a so-called corporeal disease that threatens to be fatal-a suppuration of the lungs, or the destruction of some other important viscus, or some other ardent (acute) disease, e.g. in manent cure in a patient of a calm, equable disposition, and just as little will nux vomica be serviceable where the disposition is mild and phlegmatic, pulsatilla where it is happy, gay, and obstinate, or ignatia where it is imperturbable and disposed neither to be frightened nor vexed. 268 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. child-bed, &c.-becomes transformed into insanity, a kind of melancholia or mania, by a rapid increase of the mental symptoms that were previously present, whereby the corporeal symptoms lose all their danger; these latter improve almost to perfect health, or rather they decrease to such a degree, that their obscure presence can only be detected by the constant and minute observation of the physician. In this manner it becomes transformed into a one-sided, and as it were a local disease, in which the symptom of the mental disturbance, which was at first but slight, increases so as to be the chief symptom, and in a great measure occupies the place of the other (corporeal) symptoms, whose violence it subdues in a palliative manner, so that, in a word, the affections of the grosser corporeal organs become, as it were, transferred and led away to the almost spiritual, mental and moral organs, which have never yet been, and never will be reached by the dissecting scalpel. ~ CCXVII. Great care must be exercised in investigating, in these diseases, the entire collection of phenomena, relative both to the corporeal symptoms, and also, and indeed particularly, relative to the accurate apprehension of the exact peculiarity (character) of the chief symptom, of the special, and always prominent state of the mind and disposition, in order to discover, for the extinction of the entire disease, among the remedies known in respect of their pure effects, a ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 269 homioopathic medicinal morbific agent, a remedy, which among its symptoms displays, with the greatest possible similarity, not only the corporeal morbid symptoms present in the case of disease before us, but also especially its mental and moral state. ~ CCXVIII. To this collection of symptoms belongs in the first place the accurate description of all the phenomena of the previous so-called corporeal disease, before it degenerated into a one-sided increase of the moral symptom, before it became a disease of the mind and disposition. This may be learned from the report of the patient's friends. ~ CCXIX. A comparison of these previous symptoms of the corporeal disease with the traces of them that still remain, though they have become less perceptible (but which even now sometimes become prominent, when a lucid interval and a transient alleviation of the mental disease occurs) will serve to demonstrate them to be still present, though concealed. ~ CCxx. By adding to this the state of the mind and disposition accurately observed by the patient's friends and by the physician himself, we have thus the complete picture of the disease set together, for which, in order to effect the homceopathic cure of the disease, 270 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. a medicine capable of producing symptoms strikingly similar, and especially a similar disturbance of the mind, must be sought for among the antipsoric remedies, if the mental disease have already lasted some time. ~ CCXXI. If, however, insanity or mania (caused by fright, vexation, the abuse of spirituous liquors, &c.) have suddenly broken out as an acute disease, in the patient's ordinary calm state, although it almost always arises from internal psora, like a flame bursting forth from it, yet when it occurs in this acute manner it should not be immediately treated with antipsorics, but in the first place with remedies indicated for it out of the other class of proved medicaments (e.g. aconite, belladonna, stramonium, hyoscyamus, mercury, &c.) in highly potentized, minute, homoeopathic doses, in order to subdue it so far, that the psora shall for the time revert to its former latent state, wherein the patient appears as if quite well. ~ CCXXII. But such a patient, who has recovered from an acute mental or moral disease by the use of these non-antipsoric medicines, should never be regarded as cured; on the contrary, no time should be lost in freeing him completely,' by means of a prolonged 1 It very rarely happens that a disease of the mind or disposition, )which has already lasted a considerable time, ceases of itself (by ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 271 antipsoric treatment, from the chronic miasm of the psora, which, it is true, has now become once more latent, but is quite ready to break out anew; if this is done, there is no fear of another similar attack, if he attend faithfully to the diet and regimen prescribed for him. ~ CCXXIII. But if the antipsoric treatment be neglected, then we may almost assuredly expect, from a much slighter cause than brought on the first attack of the insanity, the speedy occurrence of a new and more lasting and severe fit, during which the psora is apt to develop itself completely, and passes into either a periodic or continued mental derangement, which is then more difficult to be cured by antipsorics. the internal disease transferring itself again upon the grosser corporeal organs); such are the few cases met with now and then, where a former inmate of a madhouse has been dismissed apparently recovered. Hitherto all mad-houses have continued to be chokefull, so that the number of other insane persons who seek for admission into such institutions could scarcely find room in them, unless some of the insane in the house died. Not one of them is ever really and permanently cured in them! A convincing proof, among many others, of the complete nullity of the non-healing art hitherto practised, which has been ridiculously honoured by allopathic ostentation with the title of rational medicine. How often, on the other hand, has not the true healing art, genuine, pure homoeopathy, been able to restore such unfortunate beings to the possession of their mental and corporeal health, and to give them back again to their delighted friends and to the world! 272 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ CCXXIV. If the mental disease be not quite developed, and if it be still somewhat doubtful, whether it really arose from a corporeal affection, or did not rather result from faults of education, bad practices, corrupt morals, neglect of the mind, superstition or ignorance; the mode of deciding this point will be, that if it proceed from one or other of the latter causes it will yield and grow better by rational, friendly exhortations, consolatory motives, serious representations and sensible advice, whereas a real moral or mental disease, depending on corporeal disease, would be speedily aggravated by such a course, the melancholic would become still more dejected, querulous, inconsolable and retiring, as also the spiteful maniac would thereby become still more exasperated, and the chattering fool would become manifestly more foolish.' ~ ccxxV. There are, however, as has just been stated, certainly a few mental diseases which have not merely grown out of corporeal diseases, but which, in an inverse manner, the body being but slightly indisposed, arise and continue in the mind, from continued 1It would seem as though the mind, in these cases, felt with uneasiness and grief the truth of these rational representations, and acted upon the body, as if it wished to restore the lost harmony, but that the body, by means of its disease, reacted upon the organs of the mind and disposition, and put them in still greater commotion, by a fresh transference of its sufferings on to them. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 275 away with. This is so much the more easily effected, as in the administration of the medicine-the only circumstance in which the employment of coercion could be justified-in the homceopathic system, the small doses of the appropriate medicine never offend the taste, and may consequently be given to the patient without his knowledge in his drink, in which case there is no necessity to employ any compulsory measures. ~ CCXXIX. On the other hand, contradiction, eager explanations, rude corrections and invectives, as also weak, timorous yielding are quite out of place with such patients, they are equally pernicious modes of treating mental maladies. But such patients are most of all exasperated and their complaint aggravated by contumely, fraud, and deceptions that they can detect. The physician and keeper must always appear as if they believed them to be possessed of their reason. All kinds of external disturbing influences on their senses and disposition should be if possible removed: there are no amusements for their clouded spirit, no salutary distractions, no means of instruction, no soothing effects from conversation, books or other spite at the apparent incurability of mental diseases, in harshness towards the pitiable, innocent sufferers, for they are too ignorant to be of any use, and too indolent to adopt a judicious mode of treatment. T2 276 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. things, for their mind that pines or frets in the chains of the diseased body, no invigoration for it, but the cure; it is only when the bodily health is changed for the better, that tranquillity and comfort again beam upon their mind. ~ ccxxx. If the antipsoric remedies selected for each particular case of mental disease (-there are incredibly numerous varieties of them-) be quite homoeopathically suited for the faithfully traced picture of the morbid state, which, if there be a sufficient number of this kind of medicines known in respect of their pure effects, is ascertained, by an indefatigable search for the most appropriate homoeopathic remedy all the more easily, as the moral and mental state, constituting the principal symptom of such a patient, is so unmistakeably perceptible-, then the smallest possible doses are often sufficient to effect the most striking improvement in no very long time, which could not be brought about by physicking the patient to death with the largest, oft-repeated doses of all other unsuitable (allopathic) medicines. Indeed, I can confidently assert from great experience, that the vast superiority of the homoeopathic system over all other conceivable methods of treatment, is nowhere displayed in a more triumphant light than in mental diseases of long standing, which originally sprang from corporeal maladies or were developed simultaneously with them. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 279 but seldom complicated with syphilis, and are successfully treated by the same means; yet it is sometimes necessary to employ as an intermediate remedy, a small dose of a potentized solution of cinchona bark, in order to extinguish completely their intermittent type. ~ CCXXXV. With regard to the intermittent fevers' that prevail sporadically or epidemically (not those that are endemically established in marshy districts) we often 1 The pathology that has hitherto existed, and which has never advanced beyond the period of irrational infancy, recognises but one, single intermittent fever, which it likewise termed ague, and takes notice of no varieties but what are dependent on the intervals at which the paroxysms recur, quotidian, tertian, quartan, &c. But there are much more important differences among them than what are marked by the periods of their recurrence; there are innumerable varieties of these fevers, some of which cannot even be denominated ague, as their fits consist solely of heat; others, again, are characterized by cold alone, with or without subsequent perspiration; yet others which exhibit general coldness of the surface, with a sensation of heat on the patient's part, or whilst the body feels externally hot, the patient feels cold; others again, in which one paroxysm consists entirely of a rigor or simple cold, followed by an interval of health, while the next consists of heat alone, followed or not by perspiration; others again, in which the heat comes first, and the cold stage not till that is gone; others again, wherein after a cold and hot stage apyrexia ensues, and then perspiration comes on like a second fit, often many hours subsequently; others again, in which no perspiration at all comes on, and yet others in which the whole attack consists of perspiration alone, without any cold or hot stage, or in 280 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. find every paroxysm composed, as it were, of two opposite alternating states (cold, heat-heat, cold), more frequently still of three (cold, heat, sweat). Therefore the remedy selected for them from the general class of (common, not antipsoric) medicines that have been proved, must either (and this is the most to be relied on) be able likewise to produce in the healthy body two (or all three) similar alternating which the perspiration is only present during the heat; and there are innumerable other differences, especially in regard to the accessory symptoms, the peculiar headache, the bad taste in the mouth, the nausea, the vomiting, the diarrhcea, the want of or excessive thirst, the peculiar nature of the pains in the body or limbs, the sleep, the deliria, the moral affections, the spasms, &c., before, during or after the cold stage, before, during or after the hot stage, before, during or after the sweating stage, and countless other varieties. All these are manifestly intermittent fevers of very different kinds, each of which, as might naturally be supposed, requires a special (homceopathic) treatment. It must be confessed that they can almost all be suppressed (as is often done) by large, monstrous doses of bark, and of its pharmaceutical preparation, the sulphate of quinine, that is to say, their periodical recurrence (their type) may be extinguished by it, although often only after increased and frequently repeated doses, but the patients who suffered from intermittent fevers, for which cinchona bark is not suitable, as is the case with all those epidemic intermittent fevers that traverse whole countries and even mountainous districts, are not restored to health by the extinction of the type; on the contrary, they now remain ill in another manner, and worse, often much worse than before; they are affected by peculiar, chronic, bark-diseases, and can scarcely be restored to health, after a long time, even by the true system of medicine; and yet that is what is called curing, forsooth! ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 281 states, or else must correspond by similarity of symptoms, in the most homceopathic manner possible, to the strongest, best-marked, and most peculiar alternating state (either to the cold stage with its accessory symptoms, or to the hot stage with its accessory symptoms, or to the sweating stage with its accessory symptoms, according as the one or other alternating state is the strongest and most peculiar); but still the symptoms of the patient's health during the intervals when he is free from pain, must be the chief guide to the most appropriate homceopathic remedy.' ~ CCXXXVI. The most appropriate and effectual time for administering the medicine in these cases is immediately or very soon after the termination of the paroxysm, as soon as the patient has in some degree recovered from its effects; it has then time to effect all the changes in the organism requisite for the restoration of health, without any great disturbance or violent convulsion; whereas the action of a medicine, be it ever so specifically appropriate, if given immediately before the paroxysm, coincides with the natural re1 Dr. von. BSnninghausen, who has rendered more services to our beneficent system of medicine than any other of my disciples, has best elucidated this subject which demands so much care, and has facilitated the choice of the efficient remedy for the various epidemics of fever, in his work entitled Versuch einer homnopathischen Therapie der Weehselfieber, 1833, Miinster bei Regensberg. 282 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. currence of the disease, and causes such a reaction in the organism, such a violent contention, that an attack of that nature produces at the very least a great loss of strength, if it do not endanger life.' But if the medicine be given immediately after the termination of the fit, that is to say, at the period when the nonfebrile interval has commenced, and a long time before there are any preparations for the next paroxysm, then the vital force is in the best possible condition to allow itself to be quietly altered by the remedy, and thus restored to the healthy state. ~ CCXXXVII. But if the period of the apyrexia be very short, as happens in some very bad fevers, or if it be disturbed by some of the after-sufferings of the previous paroxysm, the homoeopathic medicine should be administered when the perspiration begins to abate, or the other secondary phenomena of the expiring paroxysm begin to diminish. ~ CCXXXVIII. It is only when. the suitable medicine has with a single dose destroyed several fits and manifest health has ensued, but after some time premonitory indica1 This is observed in the fatal cases by no means rare in which a moderate dose of opium given during the cold stage, quickly deprived the patients of life. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 283 tions of a new paroxysm appear, only then can and must the same medicine be given again, provided always the collective symptoms are still the same. This recurrence of the same fever after an interval of health, is, however, only possible, when the noxious influence that first excited the intermittent fever still continues to act upon the convalescent, as happens in marshy districts, in which case, a permanent recovery is often only possible by the removal of this exciting cause (as, for instance, a residence in a mountainous country, if the case was one of marsh intermittent fever). ~ CCXXXIX. As almost every medicine causes in its pure action a special, peculiar fever, and even a kind of intermittent fever with its alternating states, differing from all other fevers that are caused by other medicines, there exist in the extensive domain of medicines, homoeopathic remedies for all the numerous varieties of intermittent fevers, and for a great many of such fevers, even in the moderate collection of medicines already proved on the healthy individual. ~ CCXL. But if the remedy found to be the homoeopathic specific for a reigning epidemic of intermittent fever, do not effect a perfect cure in one or more patients, if it be not the influence of a marshy district that prevents the cure, it must always be the psoric miasm 284 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. in the back ground, in which case antipsoric medicines must be employed until complete relief is obtained. ~ CCXLI. Epidemic intermittent fevers, in situations where none are endemic, are of the nature of chronic diseases, composed of single acute paroxysms; each single epidemy is of a peculiar, uniform character, common to the individuals attacked, and when this character is found from the totality of the symptoms common to all, it guides us to the discovery of the homceopathic (specific) remedy suitable for all the cases, which is almost universally serviceable in those patients who enjoyed tolerable health before the occurrence of the epidemy, that is to say, who were not chronic sufferers from developed psora. ~ CCXLII. If, however, the first paroxysms of such an epidemic intermittent fever have been left uncured, or if the patients have been weakened by improper allopathic treatment; then the inherent psora that exists, alas! in so many persons, although in a latent state, becomes developed, takes on the type of intermittent fever, and to all appearance continues to act the part of the epidemic intermittent fever, so that the medicine, which would have been useful in the first paroxysms (rarely an antipsoric) is now no longer suitable, and cannot be of any service. We have now ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 285 to do with a psoric intermittent fever only, and this will generally be subdued by minute and rarely repeated doses of sulphur or hepar sulphuris in a high potency. ~ CCXLIII. In those, often very malignant intermittent fevers, which attack a single person, not residing in a marshy district, we must also at first, as in the case of those acute diseases, generally, which they resemble in respect to their psoric origin, employ for some days, to render what service it may, a homoeopathic remedy selected for the special case, from the other class of proved (not antipsoric) medicines; but if, notwithstanding this procedure, the recovery is deferred, we know that we have to do with psora on the point of its development, and that in this case antipsoric medicines alone can afford radical relief. ~ CCXLIV. The intermittent fevers endemic in marshy districts and tracts of country frequently exposed to inundations, give a great deal of work to physicians of the old school, and yet a healthy man may in his youth become habituated to even marshy districts, and remain in good health, if he preserve a faultless regimen, and be not depressed by want, fatigue, or pernicious passions. The intermittent fevers endemic there, would at the most only attack him on his first arrival; but one or two very small doses of a highly potentized ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 287 with them, we now pass on to what we have to say respecting the remedies and the mode of employing them, together with the diet and regimen to be observed during their use. Every perceptibly progressive and strikingly increasing amelioration in a rapid (acute) or stationary (chronic) disease, is a condition, which, as long as it lasts, completely precludes every repetition of the administration of any medicine whatsoever, because all the good the medicine taken continues to effect, is now hastening towards its completion. Every new dose of any medicine whatsoever, even of the one last administered, that has hitherto shewn itself to be salutary, would in this case disturb the work of amelioration. ~ CCXLVI. On the other hand, the slowly progressive amelioration consequent on a very minute dose, whose selection has been accurately homceopathic, when it has met with no obstruction to the duration of its action, sometimes accomplishes all the good the remedy in question is capable from its nature of performing in a given case, in periods of forty, fifty, or a hundred days. This is, however, but rarely the case, and besides, it must be a matter of great importance to the physician as well as to the patient, that were it possible, this period should be diminished to one half, one quarter, and even still less, so that a much more rapid cure might be obtained. And this 288 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. may be very happily effected, as recent, and oftrepeated observations have shewn, under these conditions: firstly, if the medicine selected with the utmost care was perfectly homceopathic-secondly, if it was given in the minutest dose, so as to produce the least possible commotion in the vital force, and yet sufficient to effect the necessary revolution in it; and thirdly, if this minutest, powerful dose of the best selected medicine be repeated at suitable intervals,' which experience shall have pronounced to be IIn the former editions of the Organon, I have advised that a single dose of a well-selected homceopathic medicine should always be allowed first fully to expend its action, before a new medicine is given or the same one repeated-a doctrine which was the result of the positive experience, that neither by a larger dose of the remedy which may have been well chosen (as has been again recently proposed, but which would be, as it were, a retrograde movement), nor, what amounts to the same thing, by several small doses of it, given in quick succession, can the greatest possible good be effected in the cure of diseases, more especially of chronic ones, and the reason of this is, that by such a procedure the vital force does not quickly accommodate itself to the change from its derangement by the natural disease into the similar medicinal disease, but is usually so violently excited and convulsed by a larger dose, or also by smaller doses of even a homceopathically chosen remedy, given rapidly one after the other, that in most cases its re-action will be anything but salutary, and will do more harm than good. As long as no more efficacious mode of proceeding than that then taught by me was discovered, the safe philanthropic maxim of si non juvat, modo ne noceat, rendered it imperative for the homceopathic practitioner who held the weal of mankind to be his highest object, to allow, as a general rule in diseases, but a single dose, and that the very ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 289 the best adapted for accelerating the cure to the utmost extent, yet without the vital force which it is smallest, of the carefully selected remedy, to act at once upon the patient, and moreover to exhaust its action. The very smallest, I repeat, for it holds good, and will continue to hold good as a homceopathic therapeutic maxim, not to be refuted by any experience in the world, that the best dose of the properly selected remedy is always the very smallest one in one of the high dynamizations (X), as well for chronic as for acute diseases-a truth that is the inestimable property of pure homeopathy, and which, as long as allopathy (and the new mongrel-system, made up of a mixture of allopathic and homocopathic processes, is not much better) continues to gnaw like a cancer at the life of sick human beings, and to ruin them by large and ever larger doses of drugs, will keep pure homoeopathy separated from these spurious arts as by an impassable gulf. On the other hand, however, practice shews us that though a single one of those small doses may suffice to accomplish almost all that it was possible for this medicine to do on the occasion, in some, and especially in slight cases of disease, particularly in those of young children and very delicate and excitable adults, yet that in many, indeed in most cases, not only of very chronic diseases, that have already made great progress, and have frequently been aggravated by a previous employment of inappropriate medicines, but also of serious acute diseases, one such smallest dose of medicine in our highly potentized preparation is evidently insufficient to effect all the curative action that might be expected from the same medicine, for it may unquestionably be requisite to administer several of them, in order that the vital force may be pathogenetically altered to such a degree, and its salutary reaction stimulated to such a height, as to enable it completely to extinguish, by its reaction, the whole of that portion of the original disease, that it lay in the power of the well selected homceopathic remedy to eradicate; the best chosen medicine in such a small dose, given but once, might certainly be of some service, but would not be nearly sufficient. 290 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. sought to influence to the production of a similar medicinal disease, being able to feel itself stimulated and convulsed to contrarious reactions. But the careful homceopathic physician would not venture soon to repeat the same dose of the same remedy again and again, as from such a practice he has frequently experienced no advantage, and most frequently, on close observation, disadvantage. He generally witnessed aggravation, from even the smallest dose of the most suitable remedy, which he had given one day, when repeated the next day and the next. Now, in cases where he was convinced of the correctness of his choice of the homceopathic medicine, in order to obtain more benefit for the patient, than he was able to get hitherto, from prescribing a single small dose, the idea often naturally struck him, to increase the dose, since, for the reasons given above, one single dose only should be given, and, for instance, in place of giving a single very minute globule moistened with the medicine in the highest dynamization, to administer six, seven or eight of them, and even a half or a whole drop. But the result was almost always less favourable than it should have been; it was often actually unfavourable, often even very bad,-an injury, that in a patient so treated, it is difficult to repair. The difficulty in this case is not solved by giving, instead, lower dynamizations of the remedy in a large dose. Thus, increasing the strength of the single doses of the homoeopathic medicine with the view of effecting the degree of pathogenetic excitation of the vital force necessary to produce salutary reaction, fails altogether, as experience teaches, in accomplishing the desired object. The vital force is thereby too violently and too suddenly assailed and convulsed, to allow it time to exercise a gradual, equable, salutary reaction, to adapt itself to the modification effected in it, hence it strives to repel, as if it were an enemy, the medicinal influence attacking it in excess, by means of vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, perspiration, and so forth, and thus, in a great measure, it 292 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. with the best, often with incredible results, at intervals of fourteen, twelve, ten, eight, seven days, and a period of time which must be proportionally lengthened when we have to treat weaker and more excitable patients of this kind, when we would do well to give such a dose only every nine, twelve, or fourteen days, which should be repeated until the medicine ceases to be efficacious. We thus find (to abide by the instance of sulphur), that in psoric diseases seldom fewer than four, often however six, eight, and even ten such doses (tinct. sulph. XO) are required to be successively administered at these intervals, for the complete annihilation of the whole portion of the chronic disease that is eradicable by sulphur,-provided always, there had been no previous allopathic abuse of sulphur in the case. Thus, even a (primary) itch eruption of recent origin, though it may have spread all over the body, may be perfectly cured, in persons that are not too weakly, by a dose of tinct. sulph. X0 given every seven days, in the course of from ten to twelve weeks (accordingly with ten or twelve such globules), so that it will seldom be necessary to aid the cure with a few doses of carb. veg. XO (also given at the rate of one dose in the week), without the slightest external treatment, besides frequent changes of linen and good regimen. When for other diseases also, we may consider it requisite, as far as we can calculate, to give eight, nine, or ten doses of tinct. sulph. (at Xo), it is yet more expedient in such a case, instead of giving them in uninterrupted succession, to interpose after every, or every second or third dose, a dose of another medicine, which in this case is next in point of homceopathic suitableness to sulphur (usually hep. sulph.), and to allow this likewise to act for eight, nine, twelve or fourteen days, before again commencing a course of three doses of sulphur. But it not unfrequently happens that the vital force makes opposition to the quiet action upon itself of several doses of sulphur, even when given at the above intervals, and though they may be quite requisite to effect the cure, and this opposition it reveals by some, though ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 293 where rapidity is requisite, in chronic diseases resembling cases of acute disease, at still shorter intervals, moderate sulphur symptoms, which it permits to come to light in the patient during the treatment. In such cases it is sometimes advisable to administer a small dose of nux vomr. X0, allowing it to act for eight or ten days, in order to dispose the system again to allow succeeding doses of the sulphur to act quickly and effectually upon it. In those cases for which it is adapted, puls. XO is preferable. But the vital force shews itself most indisposed to allow the salutary action upon it of the sulphur which is highly indicated, and even shews manifest aggravation of the chronic disease, though the sulphur be given in the very smallest dose, though only a globule of the size of a mustard seed moistened with tinct. sulph. X~ be smelt, if the sulphur have formerly (it may be years since) been abused, by being given allopathically in large doses. This is one of the lamentable circumstances that renders the best medical treatment of chronic diseases almost impossible, among the many that the ordinary bungling of chronic diseases by the old school would leave us nothing to do but to deplore, were there not some mode of getting over the difficulty. In such cases we have only to let the patient smell a single time strongly at a globule the size of a mustard seed moistened with mercur. metall. X, and allow this olfaction to act for about nine days, in order to make the vital force again disposed to permit the sulphur (at least the olfaction of tinct. sulph. X~) to exercise a beneficial influence on itself-a discovery for which we are indebted to Dr. Griesselich of Carlsruhe. Of the other antipsoric remedies (except perhaps phosph. X) it is requisite to administer fewer doses at similar intervals (of sepia and sil. at longer intervals without any intermediate remedy, where they are homceopathically indicated), in order to attain the object, of eradicating, in a given case, all that is curable by the remedy indicated. HIep. sulph. calc. X can rarely be taken or smelt at shorter intervals than every fourteen or fifteen days. ORGANON OF MEDICINE 295 very acutest, every hour, up to as often as every five minutes-in every case in proportion to the more or that of the medicine that has been taken in substance, hence even this olfaction ought not to be repeated at shorter intervals. [It is important and interesting to the homoeopathic practitioner to know the latest practice of Hahnemann with respect to the administration and repetition of the medicine, therefore I have no hesitation in giving in this place his observations on the subject, prefixed to the third part of the second edition of his work on Chronic Diseases, published in 1837. " Since I last addressed the public on the subject of our system of medicine, I have had opportunities of making observations, among other things, on the best possible mode of regulating the doses for the patients, and I here communicate what I have found to be the best plan in this respect. " If a small globule of one of the highest dynamizations of a medicine laid dry on the tongue, or moderate olfaction in a phial containing one or several of such globules, shew itself to be the smallest, weakest dose, of the shortest duration of action (though there are plenty of patients of such an excitable nature as to be affected thereby, to a sufficient extent for the cure of slight acute diseases, for which the remedy has been homoeopathically selected), we can easily understand, that the incredible variety in patients as regards their excitability, their age, their mental and corporeal development, their vital force, and especially the nature of their disease (which in one case may be natural, and simple and of recent origin, in another natural, simple and of long standing, in another complicated-the union of several miasms-, in another, and this is the commonest and worst case, ruined by wrong medicinal treatment and burdened with medicinal diseases) demands a great variety in their treatment, as also in the regulation of the doses of medicine suitable for them. " I must limit myself in this place to the latter subject only, as 298 plGANON OF MEDICINE. long as until either recovery ensues, or the same remedy ceases to do good and the rest of the disease long as the remedy continues to effect improvement and no new symptoms of the medicine (never experienced by other patients) appear, in which case another medicine must be employed. But if only the symptoms of the disease appear, but increase considerably under the continued and even moderated use of the medicine, then is it time to discontinue it for one or two weeks or even longer, and we may expect to see striking improvement from it.* " If, after such a portion has been taken and the same medicine is still found to be necessary, the physician wish to prepare a fresh portion of the same degree of potency for the patient, it is requisite to shake the new solution, as at first, as many times as the number of succussions given to the former one amount to, and a few times more, before the patient takes the first dose of it; at the subsequent doses, however, only five or six times again. " In this manner the hommeopathic physician will obtain all the * "In the treatment of cases of acute disease, the homceopathic physician goes to work in a similar manner. He dissolves one or two globules of the highly potentized, well-selected medicine, in seven, ten, or fifteen tablespoonfuls of water (without any addition) by shaking the bottle, and lets the patient, according as the disease is more or less acute, more or less dangerous, take a whole or half tablespoonful, every half, whole, or every two, three, four or six hours (after well shaking the bottle each time), or when it is a child, he gives it still seldomer. If the physician observe the occurrence of no new symptoms, he goes on with it in these intervals, until the symptoms at first present begin to increase; then he gives it more rarely and in smaller doses. " In the cholera, as is well known, the suitable remedy should be given frequently, at much shorter intervals. "Children should get these solutions always only out of their ordinary drinking mugs; a table or teaspoon for drinking with is something quite unusual and suspicious to them, and for that reason they reject this tasteless liquid. Some sugar may be added to it for them." ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 299 presenting a diferent group of symptoms, demands a different homwopathic medicine. benefit from a well selected medicine which he could expect to derive for this chronic disease, by means of giving it by the mouth. " But if the diseased organism be acted on by the physician with the same medicine, at the same time, on other sensitive parts besides the nerves of the mouth and alimentary canal, if, I say, the same medicine which is found salutary, be at the same time rubbed in externally in an aqueous solution (even in but a small quantity) on one or more parts of the body which are most free from morbid affections (e. g. on an arm, or a leg or a thigh, that is affected by no skin disease, pains nor cramps), by this means the salutary action will be much increased; the limbs to be rubbed in this manner may be moreover changed. In this way the physician gains much more advantage from the homoeopathically suited medicine for the patient affected by a chronic disease, and can cure him much more rapidly than by merely administering it by the mouth. " This mode of employing the medicine (that has been found useful internally) by rubbing it into the skin of the surface of the body, which has been very much tested by me and is uncommonly efficacious, and is even accompanied with the most strikingly happy results, explains those rare miraculous cures, in which patients with a sound skin, who had long been cripples, recovered rapidly and for ever, by bathing a few times in a mineral water the medicinal constituents of which were probably homceopathically suited for their chronic disease.* * " On the other hand they were proportionately injurious in patients who suffered from ulcers and cutaneous eruptions, which, as happens from other external remedies, they repelled from the skin, whereupon, after a transient restoration of the patient's vital force, the internal, uncured disease settled in another part of the body much more important for life and health, so that in place of these affections, e. g. the crystalline lens grew opaque, the optic nerve became paralysed, the hearing was lost, pains of countless kinds tormented the patient, his intellectual organs 302 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. to be cured, is not capable of effecting real improveing globules of the same medicine, but every time in a lower degree of potency, once or twice with each nostril according as I wished to make a smaller or a greater impression." In a letter from Dr. Croserio, of Paris, to Dr. v. Bijnninghausen, of Miinster, (N. Archiv, i. 2, p. 31,) there are a few particulars respecting the practice of Hahnemann up to the period of his decease, of which the writer assures us he was often a witness. " Hahnemann," he writes, "always made use of the well-known small globules, which were generally impregnated with the thirtieth dilution, both for acute and chronic diseases. Of these globules he directed one, or at most two, to be dissolved in a caraffe containing from eight to fifteen tablespoonfuls of water, and a half or a whole tablespoonful of French brandy. One tablespoonful only of this solution was put in a tumbler of water, and this last the patient took by teaspoonfuls, on the first day one teaspoonful, on the second two, on the third three, and so on, a spoonful more daily until he felt some effect. He then diminished the dose, or discontinued the medicine entirely. In other cases he caused a spoonful of the first tumbler to be poured into a second tumbler of water, in others, from this last into a third, and so on to a sixth tumbler, and directed a teaspoonful to be taken from the last tumbler only, when he had to do with very irritable subjects. The cases were rare in which he allowed a table or teaspoonful to be taken daily from the first solution made with from eight to fifteen tablespoonfuls of water. If he gave a powder to be taken at once in a spoonful of water, that was always only milk-sugar. He never prescribed two different remedies to be taken alternately, or one after the other; he would always first learn the effects of one remedy before he gave another, even in patients who were treated by him at two hundred leagues distance. Neither did he change the medicines. Even in acute diseases it was rare for him to give more than one spoonful once in the twenty-four hours. But on the other hand, in order to quiet the patient or his friends, he gave frequent doses of plain milk-sugar. Hahnemann appeared in the latter years ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 307 no new unusual symptoms in addition to these, and that none of the old symptoms are worse. If this be the case, and if an improvement in the disposition and mind have already been observed, the medicine must have effected positive diminution of the disease, or, if sufficient time have not yet elapsed for this, it will soon effect it. Now, supposing the remedy is perfectly appropriate, if the improvement delay too long in making its appearance, this depends either on some error of conduct on the part of the patient, or on the homoeopathic aggravation produced by the medicine lasting too long (~ clvii), consequently on the dose not being small enough. ~ CCLVI. On the other hand, if the patient mention the occurrence of some fresh accidents and symptoms of importance-signs that the medicine has not been homoeopathically chosen-even though he should good-naturedly assure us that he feels better, we must not believe this assurance, but regard his state as aggravated, as it will soon be perfectly apparent it is. ~ CCLVII. The true physician will take care to avoid making favourite remedies of medicines, the employment of which he has, by chance, perhaps, found oftener useful, and which he has had opportunities of using with good effect. If he do so, some remedies of rarer x2 308 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. use, which would have been more homoeopathically suitable, consequently more serviceable, will be neglected. ~ CCLVIII. The true practitioner, moreover, will not with mistrustful weakness neglect the employment of those remedies that he may now and then have employed with disadvantage, owing to an erroneous selection (from his own fault, therefore), or avoid them for other (false) reasons, as that they were unhomceopathic for the case of disease before him; he must bear in mind the truth, that of medicinal agents that one alone invariably deserves the preference, in every case of disease, which corresponds most accurately, by similarity, to the whole collection of the characteristic symptoms, and that no petty prejudices should interfere with this serious choice. ~ CCLIX. Considering the minuteness of the doses necessary and proper in homceopathic treatment, we may easily understand that, during the treatment, everything must be removed from the diet and regimen which can have any medicinal action, in order that the small dose may not be overwhelmed and extinguished or disturbed by any foreign medicinal irritant.1 1The softest tones of a distant flute that in the still midnight hours would raise a tender heart to superhuman feelings and dissolve it in religious ecstacy, are inaudible and powerless amid discordant cries and the noise of day. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 309 ~ CCLX. Hence the careful investigation into such obstacles to cure is so much the more necessary in the case of patients affected by chronic diseases, as their disease is usually aggravated by such noxious influences, and other frequently unnoticed errors in the regimen, which are productive of morbid effects.1 1 Coffee; fine Chinese and other herb-teas; beer prepared with medicinal vegetable substances unsuitable for the patient's state; so-called fine liqueurs made with medicinal spices; all kinds of punch; spiced chocolate; odorous waters and perfumeries of many kinds; strong scented flowers in the apartment; tooth powders and essences and perfumed sachets composed of drugs; highly spiced dishes and sauces; spiced cakes and ices; raw medicinal vegetables for soups; dishes of herbs, roots and stalks of plants possessing medicinal qualities; old cheese, and meats that are in a state of decomposition, or that possess medicinal properties (as the flesh and fat of pork, ducks and geese, or veal that is too young and sour viands), ought just as certainly to be kept from patients as they should avoid all excesses in food, and in the use of sugar and salt, as also spirituous drinks, heated rooms, woollen clothing next the skin (which should be exchanged in warm weather only, first for cotton then for linen garments), sedentary modes of living in close apartments, or the frequent indulgence of mere passive exercise (by riding, driving or swinging), prolonged suckling, sleeping long after dinner in a recumbent posture (in bed), sitting up long at night, unnatural debauchery, enervation by reading obscene books, subjects of anger, grief or vexation, a passion for play, excessive exertion of mind or body, dwelling in marshy districts, damp rooms, penurious living, and so forth. All these things must be as far as possible avoided or removed, in order that the cure may not be obstructed or rendered 310 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ CCLXI. The most appropriate regimen during the employment of medicine in chronic diseases consists in the removal of such obstacles to recovery, and in supplying where necessary the reverse: innocent moral and intellectual recreation, active exercise in the open air in almost all kinds of weather (daily walks, slight manual labour) suitable, unmedicinal food and drink, and so forth. ~ CCLXII. In acute diseases, on the other hand-except in cases of mental alienation-the subtile, infallible, internal sense of the awakened life-preserving faculty determines so clearly and precisely, that the physician only requires to counsel the friends and attendants to put no obstacles in the way of this voice of nature, by a refusal of anything the patient urgently desires in the way of food, or by asking and persuading him to partake of anything injurious. ~ CCLXIII. The desire of the patient affected by an acute disease with regard to food and drink, is certainly chiefly for things that give palliative relief; they are, impossible. Some of my disciples seem needlessly to increase the difficulties of the patient's dietary by forbidding the use of many more, tolerably indifferent things, which is not to be commended. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 311 however, not strictly speaking of a medicinal character, and merely supply a sort of want. The slight hindrances that the gratification of this desire, within moderate bounds, could oppose to the radical removal of the disease, will be amply counteracted and overcome by the power of the homoeopathically suited medicine and the vital force set free by it, as also by the refreshment that follows from taking what has been so ardently longed for. In like manner, in acute diseases, the temperature of the room and the heat or coolness of the coverings must also be arranged entirely in conformity with the patient's wish. ~ CCLXIV. The true physician must have the most energetic, most genuine medicines at hand, if he would be able to rely upon their therapeutic powers, he must be able, himself, to judge of their genuineness. ~ CCLXV. It should be a matter of conscience with him, to be thoroughly convinced in every case, that the patient takes the right medicine every time. ~ CCLXVI. Substances belonging to the animal and vegetable kingdoms are most medicinal in their raw state.1 1 All raw animal and vegetable substances have a greater or less amount of medicinal power, and are capable of altering man's health, each in its own peculiar way. Those plants and animals used by the 312 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ CCLXVII. We gain possession of the powers of indigenous plants and of such as may be had in a fresh state in most enlightened nations as food, have this advantage over all others, that they contain a larger amount of nutritious parts, and they differ from the others in this, that their medicinal powers in their raw state are either not very great in themselves, or are diminished by culinary and domestic preparation, by the expression of their pernicious juices (like the cassava root of South America), by fermentation (of the rye-flour in the dough for making bread-sour crout prepared without vinegar, and sour gherkins), by smoking and by the power of heat (in boiling, stewing, toasting, roasting, baking), whereby the medicinal parts of many of these substances are in part destroyed and dissipated. By the addition of salt (pickling) and vinegar (sauces, salads), animal and vegetable substances certainly lose much of their injurious medicinal qualities, but other disadvantages result from these additions. But even those plants that possess most medicinal power, lose that in part or completely by such processes. By perfect desiccation, all the roots of the various kinds of iris, of the horseradish, of the different species of arum and of the peonies, lose almost all their medicinal virtue. The juice of the most virulent plants often becomes an inert, pitch-like mass, from the heat employed in preparing the ordinary extracts. By merely standing a long time, the expressed juice of the most deadly plants becomes quite powerless; even at a moderate atmospheric temperature it rapidly takes on the vinous fermentation (and thereby loses much of its medicinal power), and immediately thereafter the acetous and putrid fermentation, whereby it is deprived of all its peculiar medicinal properties, the fecula that is then deposited, if well washed is quite innocuous, like ordinary starch. By the transudation that takes place when a number of green plants are laid one above the other, the greatest part of their medicinal properties is lost. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 315 ~ CCLXIX. The homoeopathic system of medicine develops for its use, to an unheard of degree, the spiritual medicinal powers of the crude substances by means of a process peculiar to it, and which has hitherto never been tried, whereby only they all become penetratingly efficacious and serviceable, even those that in the crude state gave no evidence of the slightest medicinal power on the human body. ~ CCLXX. Thus two drops of the fresh vegetable juice mingled with equal parts of alcohol are diluted with ninetyeight drops of alcohol and potentized by means of two succussions, whereby the first development of power if not previously freed from this superfluous moisture. This is best effected by spreading out the powder in a flat tin saucer with a raised edge, which floats in a vessel full of boiling water (i. e. a water bath), and, by means of stirring it about, drying it to such a degree, that all the small atoms of it (no longer stick together in lumps, but) like dry, fine sand, are easily separated from each other and are readily converted into dust. In this dry state, the fine powders may be kept forever uninjured, in well corked and sealed bottles, in all their original complete medicinal power, without ever being injured by mites or mould; and they are best preserved when the bottles are kept protected from the daylight (in covered boxes, chests, cases). If not shut up in air-tight vessels, and not preserved from the access of the light of the sun and day, all animal and vegetable substances in time gradually lose their medicinal power more and more, even in the entire state, but still more in the form of powder. 316 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. is formed, and this process is repeated through twentynine more phials, each of which is filled three quarters full with ninety-nine drops of alcohol, and each succeeding phial is to be provided with one drop from the preceding phial (which has already been shaken twice) and is in its turn shaken,' and in the same In order to preserve a fixed and measured standard for developing the power of liquid medicines, multiplied experience and careful observation have led me to adopt two succussions for each phial, in preference to the greater number formerly employed (by which the medicines were too highly potentized).-There are, however, homaeopathists who carry about with them on their visits to patients the homneopathic medicines in the fluid state, and who yet assert that they do not become more highly potentized in the course of time, but they thereby shew their want of ability to observe correctly. I dissolved a grain of soda in an ounce of water mixed with alcohol, in a phial, which was thereby filled two-thirds full, and shook this solution continuously for half an hour, and this was in dynamization and energy equal to the thirtieth development of power. [Hahnemann's latest recorded notions respecting dynamization, as we find them in the second edition of his Chronic Diseases, part. v, merit insertion in this place, and it will be seen that in his later years he modified considerably the opinions he has, in various places throughout the Organon, expressed on the subject. " Actual dilutions," he says, " are almost wholly confined to sapid and coloured objects. A solution of salt or bitter substances becomes always more tasteless the more water is mixed with it, and at length loses almost all taste, though we may shake it as much as we please -and in like manner a solution of a coloured substance becomes, by the admixture of more and more water, at last almost quite colourless, and gains no increase of colour by any imaginable shaking. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 317 manner at last the thirtieth development of power (potentized decillionth dilution X) which is the one most generally used. " These are and continue to be true attenuations or dilutions, but not dynamizations. "Homoeopathic dynamizations are real awakenings of the medicinal properties that lie dormant in natural bodies during theni crude state, which then become capable of acting in almost a spiritual manner upon our life, that is to say on our percipient (sensible) and excitable (irritable) fibres. These developments of properties (dynamizations) in crude medicinal substances, which were unknown before my time, are accomplished, as I first taught, by the trituration of dry substances in a mortar, but by the succussion of liquid substances, which is nothing less than a trituration of them. These preparations, therefore, cannot have the term ' dilutions' applied to them, although every preparation of the sort, in order to potentize it higher, that is to say, in order to awaken and develop still farther the medicinal properties that still lie latent in it, must first be again yet more attenuated, to allow the trituration or succussion to penetrate more deeply into the essential nature of the medicinal substance, and thus to liberate and bring to light the more subtile part of the medicinal power that lies still deeper, which were impossible to be effected by the greatest amount of trituration and succussion of substances in a concentrated state. " We frequently read in homceopathic writings, that some one or other found no effect from this or that high (dilution) dynamization of a medicine in a certain case of disease, but that a lower one rendered the desired service-whilst others saw more success attending higher ones. But the cause of the great difference in the results is not investigated. What is to prevent the preparer of homceopathic medicines (this should always be the homceopathic practitioner himself; the weapons he uses against diseases, he should himself forge, he should himself whet), what is to prevent him, in order that he may obtain powerful dynamizations, in place of giving a few ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 319 hours, up to the millionfold pulverulent attenuation, and of this one grain is to be dissolved, and brought to the thirtieth development of power by means of twenty-seven attenuating phials, in the same manner as the vegetable juices.' ~ CCLXXII. In no case is it requisite to administer more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time.2 ~ CCLXXIII. It is not conceivable, how the slightest dubiety could exist as to whether it was more consistent with nature and more rational to prescribe a single, wellknown medicine at one time in a disease, or a mixture of several differently acting drugs. ~ CCLXXIV. As the true physician finds in simple medicines administered singly and uncombined, all that he can possibly desire, (artificial morbific agents which are 1 As is still more circumstantially detailed in the prefaces to the medicines in the third edition of the second part of the Pure materia medica [and in the second edition of the Chronic Diseases, pt. I.] 2 Some homceopathists have made the experiment, in cases where they deemed one remedy suitable for one portion of the symptoms of a case of disease, and a second for another portion, of administering both remedies at once or almost at once; but I earnestly deprecate such hazardous experiments, that can never be necessary, though they may sometimes seem to be of use. 320 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. able by homoeopathic power completely to overpower, extinguish and permanently to cure natural diseases,) he will, mindful of the wise maxim: " that it is wrong to attempt to effect anything with compound means that may be effected by simple means;" never think of giving as a remedy any but a single, simple medicinal substance, for these reasons also, because even though the simple medicines were thoroughly proved with respect to their pure peculiar effects on the unalloyed healthy state of man, it is yet impossible to foresee how two and more medicinal substances might, when compounded, obstruct and alter each other's actions on the human body, and because, on the other hand, a simple medicinal substance when used in diseases, the totality of whose symptoms is accurately known, renders efficient aid by itself alone, if it were homceopathically selected, and supposing the worst case to happen, that it was not chosen in strict conformity to similarity of symptoms, and, therefore, does no good, it is yet so far useful, that it promotes our knowledge of therapeutic agents, because by the new symptoms excited by it in such a case, those symptoms which this medicinal substance had already shewn in experiments on the healthy human body, are confirmed; an advantage that is lost by the employment of all compound remedies.' 1 When the rational physician has chosen the perfectly homoeopathic medicine for the well-considered case of disease, and administered it internally, he will leave entirely to irrational allopathic ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 321 ~ CCLXXV. The suitableness of a medicine for any given case of disease does not depend on its accurate homco.opathic selection alone, but likewise on the proper size, or rather smallness, of the dose. If we give too strong a dose of a medicine which may have been even quite homccopathically chosen for the morbid state before us, it must, notwithstanding the inherent beneficial character of its nature, prove injurious by its mere magnitude, and by the unnecessary, excessive impression it mnakes upon the vital force which it convulses, and, through the vital force, upon those parts of the organism which are the most sensitive and are already most affected by the naturcal disease, by virtue of its homceopathic similarity of action. ~ CCLXXVI. For this reason, a medicine, even though it may be homocopathically suited to the case of disease, does harm, in every dose that is too large, the more harm the larger the dose, and by the magnitude of the dose it does more harm the greater its homa eopathi city and the higher the potency' selected, and it does routine the practice of giving drinks composed of other medicinal substances, of applying compresses of herbs, or fomentations with various plants, of injecting medicated glysters, and of rubbing- in this or the other ointment. I The praise bestowed, of late years, by some few homncopathists, on the larger doses, depends on this, either that they chose low Y 322 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. much more injury than any equally large dose of a medicine that was unhomoeopathic, and in no respect suitable (allopathic) to the morbid state; for in the former case the so-called homoeopathic aggravation (~ clvii-clx), that is to say, the very analogous medicinal disease produced by the vital force, convulsed by the excessively large dose of medicine, in the parts of the organism that are most suffering and most irritated by the original disease-which medicinal disease had it been of appropriate intensity would have gently effected a cure-rises to an injurious height;1 the patient, to be sure, no longer suffers from the original disease, for that has been homceopathically eradicated, but he suffers all the more from the excessive medicinal disease, and from useless exhaustion of his strength. ~ CCLXXVII. For the same reason, and because a medicine, provided the dose of it was sufficiently small, is all the more salutary, and almost miraculously efficacious, the more homceopathically it has been chosen, a medicine whose selection has been accurately homceopathic, must be all the more salutary the more its dose is reduced to the degree of minuteness adapted for affording relief in a gentle manner. dynamizations of the medicine to be administered, as I myself used to do twenty years ago, from not knowing any better, or that the medicines selected were not perfectly homoeopathic. 1 See note to ~ ccxlvi. 324 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. influences are kept away from the patient-the dose of the homoopathically selected remedy can never be prepared so small that it shall not be stronger than the natural disease, and shall not be able to overpower, extinguish and cure it, at least in part, as long as it is capable of causing some, though but a slight preponderance of its own symptoms over those of the disease resembling it (slight homceopathic aggravation, ~ clvii -clx), immediately after its ingestion. ~ CCLXXX. This incontrovertible axiom of experience is the standard of measurement by which the doses of all homwopathic medicines, without exception, are to be reduced to such an extent that, after their ingestion, they shall excite a scarcely observable homwoopathic aggravation, let the diminution of the dose go ever so far, and appear ever so incredible to the material ideas of common-place physicians;1 their idle declamations must cease before the dicta of infallible experience. 1Let them learn from the mathematicians, how true it is, that a substance divided into ever so many parts must contain in its smallest conceivable parts always still somewhat of this substance, and that the smallest conceivable part does not cease to be some of this substance, and cannot possibly become nothing;-let them, if they are capable of being taught, hear from natural philosophers, that there are enormously powerful things (potencies), which are perfectly destitute of weight, as for example, caloric, light, &c., consequently infinitely lighter than the medicinal contents of the smallest doses used in homoeopathy;-let them, if they can, weigh the irritating ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 325 ~ CCLXXXI. Every patient is, especially in his diseased point, capable of being changed in an incredible degree, by medicinal agents corresponding by similarity of action, and there is no person, be he ever so robust, and words that bring on a bilious fever, or the mournful intelligence respecting her only son, that kills the mother;-let them touch, for a quarter of an hour, a magnet capable of lifting a hundred pounds weight, and learn from the pain it excites, that even imponderable agents can produce the most violent medicinal effects upon man;-. and let the weak ones among them allow the pit of their stomach to be slightly touched by the thumb's point of a strong-willed mesmeriser for a few minutes, and the disagreeable sensations they then suffer will make them repent of attempting to set limits to the boundless activity of nature; the weak-minded beings! If the allopathist who is trying the homceopathic system, imagine he cannot bring himself to give such small and highly attenuated doses, let him only ask himself, what risk he runs by so doing? If the scepticism, which holds what is ponderable only to be real, and all that is imponderable to be nothing, be right, nothing worse could result from a dose that appears to him to be nothing, than that no effect ensued-and consequently this would be always much more innocent than what must result from his too large doses of allopathic medicine. Why will he place more reliance on his inexperience, coupled with prejudice, than on an experience of many years borne out by facts? And moreover, the homoeopathic medicine becomes potentized at every division and diminution by trituration or succussion!-a development of the inherent powers of medicinal substances, which was never dreamed of before my time, and which is of so powerful a character, that of late years I have been compelled by convincing experience to reduce the ten succussions formerly directed to be given after each attenuation, to two. 326 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. even though he be affected only with a chronic, or so-called local disease, who will not soon experience the desired change in the affected part, if he take the salutary, homceopathically suited medicine in the smallest conceivable dose, who, in a word, will not thereby be much more altered in his health, than a healthy infant of but a day old would be. How unmeaning and ridiculous is mere theoretical scepticism in opposition to this unerring, infallible experimental proof! ~ CCLXXXII. The smallest possible dose of homoeopathic medicine, capable only of producing the very slightest homoeopathic aggravation, will, because it has the power of exciting symptoms bearing the greatest possible resemblance to the original disease (but yet stronger even in the minute dose), attack principally and almost solely the parts in the organism that are already affected, highly irritated, and rendered excessively susceptible to an irritation of such a similar character, and will alter the vital force that reigns in them to a state of very similar artificial disease, somewhat greater in degree than the natural one was, and which will usurp the place of the latter (the original disease), so that the animated organism now suffers from the artificial medicinal disease alone, which, from its nature, and in consequence of the minuteness of the dose, will soon be extinguished by the vital force that is striving to return to the normal ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 327 state, and (if the disease were merely an acute one) the body is left perfectly free from disease, that is to say, quite well. ~ CCLXXXIII. Now, in order to act really in conformity with nature, the true physician will prescribe his wellselected homceopathic medicine only in exactly as small a dose as will just suffice to overpower and annihilate the disease before him-in a dose of such smallness, that if human weakness should betray him into administering a less appropriate medicine, the injury accruing from its nature being unsuited to the disease, will be diminished to a mere trifle, and this injury effected by the smallest possible dose is, moreover, much too slight, that it may not be immediately extinguished and repaired by the natural power of life, and by speedily opposing to it a remedy more suitably selected according to similarity of action and given also in the smallest dose. ~ CCLXXXIV. The action of a dose, moreover, does not diminish in the direct ratio of the material medicinal contents of the dilutions used in homceopathic practice. Eight drops of the tincture of a medicinal substance for a dose do not produce four times as much effect on the human body as two drops, but only about twice the effect that is produced by two drops to the dose. In like manner, one drop of a mixture of a drop of 328 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. the tincture with ten drops of some unmedicinal fluid, when taken, will not produce ten times more effect than a drop of a mixture ten times more attenuated, but only about (scarcely) twice as strong an effect; and so on, in the same ratio-so that a drop of the highest dilution must, and really does, display still a very considerable action.' ~ CCLXXXV. The diminution of the dose essential for homceopathic use, will also be promoted by diminishing its volume, so that, if, instead of a drop of a medicinal dilution, we take but quite a small part2 of such a 1 Supposing one drop of a mixture that contains /0oth of a grain of medicine produces an effect........... = a, one drop of a diluted mixture containing 1/,0th of a grain of the medicine will only produce an effect....... /2; if it contain 1/o,oo0th of a grain of medicine, about... =; if it contain /io,ooo,ooo0th of a grain of medicine, it will produce an effect............... - a/ and thus it goes on, the volume of the doses being equal, with every (perhaps more than) quadratic diminution of the quantity of medicine, the action on the human body will be diminished each time to only about one half. I have very often seen a drop of the decillionth dilution of tincture of nux vomica produce pretty nearly just half as much effect as a drop of the quintillionth dilution, under the same circumstances and in the same individual. 2 For this purpose it is most convenient to employ fine sugar globules of the size of poppy seeds, one of which imbibed with the medicine and put into the dispensing vehicle constitutes a medicinal dose, which contains about the three-hundredth part of a drop, for ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 329 drop, for a dose, the object of diminishing the effect still further will be very effectually attained; and that this will be the case may be readily conceived for this reason, because with the smaller volume of the dose, but few nerves of the living organism can be touched, whereby the power of the medicine is certainly also communicated to the whole organism, but it is a weaker power. ~ CCLXXXVI. For the same reason, the effect of a homoeopathic dose of medicine increases, the greater the quantity of liquid in which it is dissolved when administered to the patient, although the actual amount of medicine remains the same. For in this case, when the medicine is taken, it comes in contact with a much larger surface of sensitive nerves susceptible of the medicinal action. Although theorists may imagine they can observe a weakening of the action of a dose of medicine by its dilution with a large quantity of liquid, experience asserts exactly the opposite, at all events, in the homceopathic employment of medicines.1 three hundred such small globules will be adequately moistened by one drop of alcohol. The dose is vastly diminished by laying one such globule alone upon the tongue and giving nothing to drink. If it be necessary, in the case of a very sensitive patient, to employ the smallest possible dose and to bring about the most rapid result, one single olfaction merely will suffice (see note to ~ cclxxxviii). 1 It is only the most simple of all excitants, wine and alcohol, that have their heating and intoxicating action diminished by dilution with much water. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 331 portion of the diluted fluid shall have received proportionally the same quantity of medicine as all the rest; for in the latter case the mixture has gained much more medicinal power than in the former. From this every one will be able to draw his own inferences, as to how homceopathic medicinal doses should be prepared if it is wished to diminish their medicinal action as much as possible, in order to suit the most sensitive patients.' ~ CCLXXXVIII. The action of medicines in the liquid form2 upon the living human body takes place in such a penetrating manner, spreads out from the point of the sensitive attenuation that its development of power shall remain moderate. A more exact description of this process will be found in the prefaces of the third edition of the second part of the Pure Materia Medica, 1833 [and in the first part of the second edition of the Chronic Diseases, 1835]. 1 The higher we carry the attenuations accompanied by dynamization (by two succussion-strokes), with so much the more rapid and penetrating action does the preparation seem to affect the vital force and to alter the health, with but slight diminution of strength even when this operation is carried very far,-in place, as is usual (and generally sufficient) to X, when it is carried up to XX, L, C, and higher; only that then the action always appears to last a shorter time. 2 It is especially in the form of vapour, by smelling and inhaling the medicinal aura that is always emanating from a globule, impregnated with a medicinal fluid in a high development of power, and placed, dry, in a small phial, that the homoeopathic remedies act most surely and most powerfully. The homceopathic physician allows the patient to hold the open mouth of the phial first in one nostril, and in 332 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. fibres provided with nerves whereto the medicine was first applied, with such inconceivable rapidity and so the act of inspiration, inhale the air out of it, and then, if it is wished to give a stronger dose, smell in the same manner with the other nostril, more or less strongly, according to the strength it is intended the dose should be; he then corks up the phial and replaces it in his pocket case, to prevent any misuse of it, and unless he wzish it, he has no occasion for an apothecary's assistance in his practice. A globule, of which ten, twenty or one hundred weigh a grain, impregnated with the thirtieth potentized dilution, and then dried, retains for this purpose all its power undiminished for at least eighteen or twenty years (my experience extends this length of time), even though the phial be opened a thousand times during that period, if it be but protected from heat and the sun's light. Should both nostrils be stopped up by coryza or polypus, the patient should inhale by the mouth, holding the orifice of the phial betwixt his lips. In little children it may be applied close to their nostrils whilst they are asleep, with the certainty of producing an effect. The medicinal aura thus inhaled comes in contact with the nerves seated in the walls of the spacious cavities it traverses without obstruction, and thus produces a salutary influence on the vital force, in the mildest yet most powerful manner, and this is much preferable to every other mode of administering the medicament in substance by the mouth. All that homoeopathy is at all capable of curing (and what can it not cure beyond the domain of mere manual surgical affections?) among excessively chronic diseases that have not been quite ruined by allopathy, as also among acute diseases, will be most safely and certainly cured by this mode of olfaction. I can scarcely name one in a f hundred out of the many patients that have sought the advice of myself and my assistant, during the past year, whose chronic or acute disease we have not treated with the most happy results, solely by means of this olfaction; during the latter half of this year, moreover, I have become convinced (of what I never could previously 334 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. ~ CCXCI. Even those organs which have lost their peculiar sense, e.g. a tongue and palate that have lost the faculty of tasting, or a nose that has lost the faculty of smelling, impart the power of the medicine that acts immediately on them alone, in undiminished perfection to all the other organs of the body. ~ CCXCII. Even the external surface of the body, covered as it is with skin and epidermis, is not unfitted for receiving the impression of the powers of medicines, especially when they are used in a liquid state, but the most sensitive parts are also the most susceptible.1 ~ CCXCIII. It only now remains for me to touch upon the subject of animal magnetism, as it is termed, or rather 1 Rubbing-in appears to favour the action of the medicines only in this way, that the friction makes the skin more sensitive, and the living fibres thereby more capable of feeling, as it were, the medicinal power, and of communicating to the whole organism this health-affecting sensation. The previous employment of friction to the inside of the thigh makes the mere laying on of the mercurial ointment afterwards quite as powerfully medicinal, as if the ointment itself had been rubbed upon that part, a process which is termed rubbing-in, but it is very doubtful whether or no the metal itself can penetrate in substance into the interior of the body, or be taken up by the absorbent vessels by means of this so-called rubbing-in. Homceopathy, however, never requires for its cures the rubbing-in of any medicine, nor does it need any mercurial ointment. 336 ORGANON OF MEDICINE. head, and sleepless anxious restlessness of weakly persons, &c., by means of a similar, single, but somewhat stronger pass; or for immediately communicating the full complement of the vital force to some one weakened part, or to the whole organism,-an object that cannot be attained so certainly and with so little interference with the other medicinal treatment by any other agent besides mesmerism. If it is wished to supply a single part with the vital force, this is effected by concentrating a very powerful and wellintentioned will for the purpose, and placing the hands or points of the fingers on the chronically weakened parts, whither an internal chronic disease has transferred its important local symptom, as, for example, in the case of old ulcers, amaurosis, paralysis of certain limbs, &c.1 Many rapid apparent cures performed in all ages, by mesmerisers endowed with great natural power, belong to this class. The effect of communicated human power upon the whole human organism was most brilliantly shewn, in the resuscitation of persons who had lain Although by this redintegration of the vital force, which ought to be repeated from time to time, no permanent cure can be effected in cases where, as has been above taught, a general internal disease lies at the root of the old local affection, as it always does, yet this positive strengthening and immediate saturation with vital force (which no more belongs to the category of palliatives than does eating and drinking when hunger and thirst are present) is no mean auxiliary to the actual treatment of the whole disease by homoeopathic medicines. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 337 some time apparently dead, by the most powerful, benevolent will of a man in the full vigour of vital force,' and of this kind of resurrection history records many undeniable examples. ~ CCXCIV. All the above-mentioned methods of practising mesmerism depend upon an influx of more or less vital force into the patient, and hence are termed positive mesmerism.2 An opposite mode of employing mesmerism, however, as it produces just the contrary effect, deserves to be termed negative mesmerism. To this belong the passes which are used to rouse 1 Especially of one of those men, of whom there are not many, who, along with great goodness of disposition and perfect bodily powers, possess but a very moderate desire for sexual intercourse, which it would give them very little trouble wholly to suppress, in whom, consequently, all the fine vital spirits that would otherwise be employed in the preparation of the semen, are ready to be communicated to other individuals, by touching them and powerfully exerting the will. Some of these powerful mesmerisers, with whom I have become acquainted, had all this peculiar character. 2 When I here speak of the decided and certain curative power of positive mesmerism, I most assuredly do not mean that abuse of it, where, by repeated passes of this kind, continued for half an hour or a whole hour at a time, and even day after day, performed on weak, nervous patients, that monstrous revolution of the whole human system is effected, which is termed somnambulism, wherein the human being is ravished from the world of sense and seems to belong more to the world of spirits-a highly unnatural and dangerous state, by means of which it has not unfrequently been attempted to cure chronic diseases. ORGANON OF MEDICINE. 339 negative pass diminishes the excessive restlessness and sleeplessness accompanied with anxiety sometimes produced in very irritable persons by a too powerful positive pass, &c. up for dead. I made his eldest brother give him a very rapid negative pass from the crown of the head over the body to the feet, and in one instant he recovered his consciousness, became lively and wvell. THE END. CODMIGENDA. Page 133, lines 3 and 5, for agencies, read agents. Page 206, note, line 6, for qui calor, read quis calor. W. DAVY & SON, PRIVNTERs, 8, GILBERT SREErT, OxroTn STREET. tInt atrh 3jnmnn atnic Xor kt, TO BE HAD OF WILLIAM HEADLAND, 15, PRINCES STREET, HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON. B(ENNINGHAUSEN. GUINNESS (A. M.D.) Manual of Homoeopathic Therapeutics, A Lecture on Homoeopathy. 6d. Intended as a Guide in the study of the MATERITA MEDICTOA PTURA rT,, (nan tit,.1, tLB.IlJl rL. AA. l'LtransLateL, WIuII additions, by J. LAURIE, M.D. 8vo, 12s. BLACK (FRANCIS, M.D.) A Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Homoeopathy. 8vo, bound in cloth, 9s. The Homoeopathic Treatment of Cholera. 8vo, is. CHEPMELL (E. C., M.D.) Homceopathic Guide, with Twelve Remedies, Is. A Domestic Homoeopathy. 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Short Elementary Treatise upon Homoeopathy and its Practice; with some of the most important Effects of Ten of the Principal IIomceopathic Remedies. Translated by E. BAYARD, M.D. 18mo, 2s. 6d. London, 1846. KIDD (J., M.R.C.S.) Homceopathy in Acute Diseases. Is. MALAN (H. V., M.D.) A Pocket Book of Homceopathy. Cloth boards, 2s. An Answer to the Inquiry, How can such Small Doses have any Effect? Stitched, 6d. What to do against Cholera. Id. Vade Mecum of the Homceopathic Practitioner. London, 1847. 5s. Aij UiTS. A Letterin vindication of the Practitioners of Homoeopathy. Is. Arnica Montana and Rhus Toxicodendron as External Remedies, with full Directions for their Use in cases of Accidents, Injuries, Surgical Operations, Gout, Rheumatism, &c. 18mo, sewed, Is. A Concise View of the System of Homoeopathy. Second edition. 4s. 6d. British Journal of Homceopathy. Quarterly. Twenty Numbers, I. to IX., 3s. 6d.; X. to XIV., 2s. 6d.; XV. to XX., 4s. each. MARSDEN (J. L., M.D.) Notes on Homceopathy. Demy 8vo, 3s. 6d. 1849. NEWMAN (GEORGE, M.R.C.S.) Homceopathic Family Assistant, Second Edition. 5s. A Concise Exposition of Homoeopathy. Its Principles and Practice; with an Appendix. Is. 6d. NORTON (J. E., M.D.) A Brief Attempt to show the Truth and Value of Homceopathy. Stitched, 3d. RUSSELL (J. R., M.D.) A Treatise on Epidemic Cholera; with a Map showing the Course of the Cholera from India to Britain. 8vo. London, 1849. Price 10s. 6d. SAMPSON (M. B.) The Progress of Homoeopathy. 5s. Truths and their Reception considered in relation to the Doctrine of Homoeopathy. 5s. 6d. Homoeopathy: its Principles, Theory, and Practice. Second Edition. 5s. 6d. SUTHERLAND (J. S., M.D.) Health, Disease, and Homoeopathic Treatment rationally considered. Stitched, Price 6d, WOOD (NEVILLE, M.D.) A Brief View of Homoeopathy; with Iints as to the Treatment of the more common Accidents and Complaints. 3s. 6d. COOKERY.-A Manual of Homceopathic Cookery. Designed chiefly for such persons as are under Homoeopathic Treatment. 3s. 6d. Defence of ahnemann and his Doctrines, including an Exposure of Dr. Alex. Wood's Homeeopathy Unmasked. 8vo, sewed, 2s. Edinburgh. A Report of the Homoeopathic Treatment of Asiatic Cholera. 6d. Homoeopathic Manual; containing Hints for Domestic Practice. Is. Medical Toogoodism. Setting forth the present relation between the IIomceopathists and Allopathists. 6d. THOEAs HASUILD, Printer, Silver Street, Falcon Square, London. ,iL ~ 1;;~l~-~bi~~P "Y;" r: e _r r;" -~~~ ~-- "L'" i ~-I '; ~ L ~t I;f~~-~--:~ - "!1111 i'~~:i. i si: i ~::: ": P~r;!I -...L,-~;1-::~ "~ I-i--1-::i F'::~l i:-r I,; i ~. ii- -ii---1:: 1;li: i - r; i:: ~i= 1;;;r:I:1 1:1" - ---':-~j;~r rii~~.:" T~~~ 1 I 'L i~ ii 1 ___ ~~: I- - ii~:LI c,:iL~~-:L";i!ii-~ -1 ~I: sovno BY BON E & SON, 'i7S~I~LEfTS7REETi~ -~; i'_r LONDON.:-~i"'~-~~~~ r,_ Bi -L d ~ %