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ENT~Z13I according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by
WILLIAM RADDE,
Ina the Clark'e Office of the District Court for the Southern District of Niw-YorzL
R. LUDWIGr PRINT9AL,
70 & 7A. V~ee7r-street,






TO THfI


HOMEOPATHIC PHYSICIANS
*     OF
THESE UNITED STATES,
THIS P{UBLICATION IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.
THIS is the first English translation which has ever appeared
of Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases. It is needless to inquire
why this admirable volume which incloses so many important
truths, the proper knowledge and appreciation of which is indispensable to the homoeopathic practitioner, should never have
before appeared in an English dress. As this omission cannot
have originated in indifference on the part of Hahnemann's disciples, the presumption is either that those few homceopathio
physicians who are really imbued with the spirit of Hahnemann's
doctrine, have been prevented by the pressure of business from
undertaking the translation of this work, or else, that they were
not sufficiently conversant with both the German and the English languages, to accomplish such a translation to their perfect
satisfaction.
But for the admirable truths which Hahnemann points out in
this volume, it probably would never be read in German. Hahnemann's phraseology is so involved, and bears so little resemblance
to the usual modes of constructing periods, either in German or



iv


TRANSLATOR'S PRE FACE.


any other language, that it is utterly impossible to furnish a bare
translation of Hahnemann's writings. There, is but one way
of turning them into another language; this is, first, to master
the sense of a period, and afterwards to embody it in the foreign
tongue in a free manner. This is the course which I have pursued in translating this volume. I have not translated words
but ideas. And the ideas I have rendered fully and faithfully:
on this head I challenge criticism.
Of the merits of Hahnemann's theory of chronic diseases, I
have nothing to say. It is not receivedcwith the same unbounded confidence by all homeopathic practitioners; but I venture to
say that its general principles are fully admitted by all those who
have a true perception of the spirit of the homceopathic doctrine.
It cannot be expected that the homceopathic doctrine should
be fully understood as long as our knowledge of the nature and
operations of the vital principle is deficient. Hahnemann's conception of the action of the homceopathic drug was altogether
vague, incomplete, and even erroneous. My own conception of
the homeopathic doctrine I have brought before the profession
in my inaugural thesis. It is substantially as follows; and I
wish it to be understood that I give it not as a mere speculation,
but-as a demonstration, so far, that is to say, as any physical
truth can be demonstrated in the present state of our knowledge.
Inductive reasoning leads us necessarily to the admission of
two orders of creative forces, one of which may be designated
by the term harmonic, the other by the term subversive. The
harmonic forces, by their action upon matter, produce those substances, animals, plants, and minerals, which are necessary to
the development of the harmonious or healthy organism; the
subversive forces, on the contrary, are those forces which produce the substances adapted to the organism in disturbance, and
destined to restore it to its original conditions of health. Both
those forces, by their action upon matter, embody themselves in



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


vii


is disease constituted? Here, I confess, science leaves us altogether, and any attempt at solving this problem, must necessarily be speculative reasoning.
One thing however is yet sufficiently clear; it is this, that the
human organism cannot be invaded by disease unless it has first
undergone a process of adaptation to the nature of a certain
order of the subversive forces. An indigestion, for instance, can
only take place, when the original hannony or equilibrium of the
organism has been interfered with by substances having been
introduced which are not adapted to the organism, or by those
substances having been introduced in too large a quantity or at
improper hours. What is termed indigestion, is therefore the
effects of a peculiar order of subversive forces acting upon the
organism existing in a peculiar state of preparatory adaptation.
It is so with every other disease. Disease is the totality of the
effects by which we recognise or perceive the action of a peculiar
order of subversive forces upon an organism which has been exceptionally or specially adapted to, or preparedfor their reception.
Hahnemann's theory of Chronic diseases corresponds exactly
with my conception of the homoeopathic doctrine. The itchvesicle, the chancre, and the cauliflower excrescence, are vicarious
embodiments of some internal disease, in a similar way as the
homoeopathic medicinal substance is the external visible type
or embodiment of the internally acting subversive forces. There
is this difference between that vicarious embodiment of the internal disease and the homceopathic type, that the latter may be
introduced into the organism and be again, by its own choice,
separated from it together with the disease, whereas the vicarious embodiment of the internal disease is the measure of the
degree and mode of adaptation which the subversive forces
have accomplished in the organism. Hence the vicarious embodiment or symptom is a mere palliative, whereas the homceopathic type has a curative effect.



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


Hahnemann's theory of Chronic diseases strikes a death-blow
at those violent modes of invading the living organism, which
are practised by the allceopathic physicians. The contents or
the secretions of an organ are exactly proportionate to, or are the
exact measure of the peculiar state of vitality of the organ. If
the organ be invaded by subversive forces, those contents or secretions indicate the degree of adaptation existing between the
subversive forces and the organ. Those contents act as palliatives inasmuch as they appease to a certain extent the fury of
the invading forces. To deprive those forces of results which
they claim as their legitimate property, would be to expite them
into a more violent action and to cause them to attack the more
delicate parts of the organism. I have explained this view more
fully in my inaugural thesis and in my note on blood-letting.
Alloeopathic physicians and people generally are inclined to
believe that retching indicating a desire of vomiting, or that tenesmus indicating a desire of going to stool, the system, in both
these instances, may be and ought to be relieved by an emetic
or a cathartic. To administer these violent remedial agents, is
a foolish mode of relieving the system. Spontaneous vomiting
or a spontaneous evacuation of the intestines may afford relief,
because they are the natural terminations of a morbid development; but those artificial evacuations, though they may, for obvious reasons, by establishing a momentary counter-irritation
for example, be momentarily followed by a semblance of relief,
are not natural terminations of a morbid process, but they are
concussions of the system taking place independently of the existing invasion of the organism by the subversive forces. Retching and tenesmus simply show that the subversive forces have
not yet succeeded in adapting the organism to their own action,
and that, so far from favouring this action by artificial means,
the organism may be the more easily disembarressed from it by
the homceopathic type.



I


ITRANSLATOR 1 PREFACE#


spiritual force of the homceopathic preparation increases in proportion as the process of trituration is carried up to a higher degree. Nevertheless there must be a limit beyond which the
attractive spiritual force of the intermediate sphere may cease to
act, on account of being raised above the spheres from which
the subversive forces themselves emanate. The great difficulty,
it seems to me, is, to discover the point, where the attractive
force of the homceopathic type will exercise its due influence
over the subversive forces in the organism. Can this focus of
attraction be determined by experiment? Does it depend upon
the nature of the medicinal substance I Does it depend upon
the order in which the subversive forces creative of disease, are
related to or super-imposed upon each other  Until questions
like these shall have been solved, we shall have to depend
greatly upon experience and careful observation for the determination of the most adequate degree of potency, in which
homceopathic preparations should be exhibited in any given form
of disease.
And we shall have especially to depend upon the word of the
master.
The recklessness with which many homeopathic practitioners
use either low or high potencies, and administer large or small
doses, one, two, or three drops, just-as it comes, or twelve, eighteen, or twenty globules just as they happen to drop out of the
vial, is altogether unpardonable, and a species of quackery sui
generts.
There are even homceopathic phy.sicians who practise upon
the principle that, if they do not kngw what remedy is homceopathic to a disease, they give the remedy which, they suppose to
be homoeopathic, in a quantity sufficient to make an impression
upon the system. Such horrible delusions can never blind the
minds of those whofeel the homoeopathic doctrine in their souls.
I intended to have here instituted a sort of inquiry into the



TRANISLATOR' PREFACE.                i
scientific character of Hahneman's theory of the chronic miasm
The results of my inquiry I shall communicate on some other
occasion. Such an inquiry is necessarily connected with an
inquiry into the whole physiological and psychological nature of
man, and this preface is already too long to admit of any more
space being devoted to farther considerations. I therefore take
leave of the reader, and trust, that this little volume may
prove acceptable to the veneration which he doubtless feels for
the great author of homoeopathy.
CHARLES J. HEMPEL, M.D.
NEW-YORK, April, 1845.



Mr. RADDE takes this opportunity of informing the Profession, and those
persons generally who are friendly to Homcmopathy, that the publication of
the present volume will be immediately succeeded by that of the anti-psoric
remedies, the first series of which, comprising " agaricus muscarius, ammonium carbonicum, ammonium muriaticum, anacardium, baryta, borax,
calcarea carbonica," is now in the press, and will be for sale at Mr. Radde's
book-store on the 15th of June next.
The anti-psoric remedies acquire an additional interest from the fact that
Hahnemann himself has pointed out the diseases in which every anti-psoric
remedy has been found most eminently useful.
On the first of August next will appear the first series of the remedies
constituting Hahnemann's Materia Medica Pura. This series will comprise
belladonna, pulsatilla, and arnica. If it is at all probable that the expenses
of the publication of this great work will he covered, no efforts will be
spared to secure it as speedy a termination as is consistent with the great
care which the translation of Hahnemann's writings demands. Every admirer of Homceopathy should possess himself of Hahncmann's materia
medica, as the greatest monument of his genius and perseverance.
The translation of this work will be achieved by Dr. Hempel, who is intimately acquainted with all the idioms and peculiarities of the German
language, and will give a correct translation of every symptom contained in
Hahnemann's MateriaMedica. No one but a German scholar is competent
to translate homoeopathic works from the German.
All those who feel disposed to procure Hahnemann's great work, are respectfully requested to signify their intentions to Mr. Radde, so that he may
be able to calculate the probable chances of his enterprise, and carry it out
with proportionate energy.
Every series, of about 200 pages each, will be paid for in proportion as it
leaves the press.
"W. RADDE takes also this opportunity to inform the Physicians and the
Friends of Hahnemann's System, that he is the sole Agent for the Central
Homoeopathic Pharmacy at Leipzig in the United States, and that he has
always on hand a good Assortment of
HOM(EOPATHIC MEDICINES
in their different preparations, as Essences (Tinctures) Triturations and
Dilutions, put up in cases containing 415 vials, with tinctures and triturations; ditto with 175; ditto cases containing 144 vials, with low Dilutions
and medicated pellets. Cases containing from 27 to 400 vials, with pellets
medicated with different (low and high) dilutions. Boxes with 60-80 vials
containing medicated pellets. Double and single leather pocket-cases of
Medicines for Physicians. Boxes for family use from three to six dollars.
Also all Isopathic Remedies. Refined Sugar of Milk, pure globules, vials,
corks, diet papers, labels, homceopathic chocolate, &c., &c.



DR. HERING'S PREFACE.
(The following article has been kindly furnished byDR. HERInG
of Philadelphia, in German. The Editor is responsible for the
translation.)
HAHNEMANN'S work on chronic diseases may be considered a.continuation of his organon; the medicines which will follow
the present volume may therefore be considered a continuation
of his materia medica pura. As the principles and rules of
general therapeutics have been developed in the organon, so does
Hahnemann develop, in the present treatise, the principles and
rules which ought to prevail in the treatment of chronic diseases,
whose name is " legion."  In the materia medica pura Hahnemann describes to us the symptoms which the general remedies
that he tried upon healthy persons, are capable of producing;
the present treatise, on the contrary, will be succeeded by an
account of those remedies, which Hahnemann especially employed in the treatment of chronic diseases, and which he therefore
called " anti-psorics."  In the organon Hahnemann tries to establish the fact that the principle " similia similibus curantur"
is the supreme rule in every true method of cure, and he shows
how this rule is to be followed in the treatment of disease;
whereas in his treatise on the chronic diseases, which is based
upon the organon and does not, in the least, modify or alter its
teachings, Hahnemann shows that most chronic diseases, originating in a common source and being related amongst each
other, a special class of remedies designated by Hahnemann " antipsorics," should be used in the treatment of those diseases.
This common source of most chronic diseases, according to
Hahnemann, is Psora.
The shallow opponents of Homceopathy-and we never had
any other!-pounced upon the theory of the psoric miasm with
a view of attacking it with their hollow and unmeaning sarcasms.
Making Psora to be identical with itch, they sneeringly pretended that according to Hahnemann's doctrine the itch was the



DR. BERING' PREFACM.


primitive evil, and that this doctrine was akin to the doctrine of
the original sin recognised by the Christian Faith.*
N NoTe or THe EDITOR: I beg pardon of my distinguished and
learned friend for annexing a few remarks to this passage. In doing
so I merely anticipate what I intend to express more fully on this subject some other occasion.                               N
As it would be absurd for a philosophical Christian to reject the
doctrine of original sin, so it is absurd for any one who professes to
have a clear perception of Homceopathy, to reject the doctrine of an
hereditary morbific miasm. Both these doctrines must stand and fall
together; and, as truth is one and indivisible, they both hold and illus.
trate each other. If we admit with Rousscau that every thing which
leaves the hand of God, is perfectly holy, then the first created man
must have been perfectly pure, and must have appeared in the image
and likeness of his maker. It seems to me absurd to suppose that
something perfectly pure can, of itself, by its own free and orderly development, produce things impure and evil. We do not know how far
God permitted an adaptation to evil to co-exist in the first man together with an adaptation to goodness. But this we certainly know
that evil fruits must be the result of eVil forces. In a certain moment
man, or God through man, permitted the adaptation to evil to prevail in
his nature; and instaneously the forces of evil, be they called serpent,
devil, or otherwise, invaded man's nature, engrafted themselves upon
it, and have, up to this moment, perpetuated their existence in it.
This is relatively speaking, a fall, although, this fall, having been the
first necessary phasis of human development, it may, in reality, be considered a progress. Man's destiny copsists in reuniting himself again
with the Divine Life through the universal expansion of all the faculties
of his soul and the realization of all the celestial harmonics the germs
of which God had deposited in his nature and towards the construction
of which science and art will furnish him the means. The principle
of division or dissolution which man had suffered to be introduced into
his spiritual nature, must necessarily have embodied itself in a corresponding principle in the material organism. It is this principle which
Hahnemann calls Psora. In proportion as man's spiritual nature be.
comes developed and purified, this psojic miasro will be diminished, and
will finally be completely removed from the life of humanity. This
complete physical regeneration of human nature will necessarily be
attended with great changes in all the external relations of man edu.
cation, mode of labouring, living, etc., etc.
Tho principle of division or didolutio existing in the human organ.



4


DR. HERING' 1 PREFAC9.


he is bilious, nervous, etc.?" Do these words mean any thing
definite 1 Are there yet physicians foolish enough to believe
that their speculative explanations mean any thing? Does not
every body acknowledge that they are mere ignes fatui flitting
to and fro upon the quagmire of the old decayed systems of pathology 1
Assuredly, a physician of modern date, who has not remained
altogether ignorant, would be ashamed of assuring his patients
with the air of a deep thinker, that one has a disease of the spine,
another consumption, a third a uterine affection, etc. Every
tyro in pathology knows that all this means nothing definite,
and that it is only to very ignorant persons that such assertions
can be given as science. Every tyro knows that the question is,
to find out what are the symptoms and the nature of that disease
of the spine or the uterus. It is moreover known that this more
precise knowledge is necessary as respects prognosis, and for the
purpose of regulating the mode of life of the patient; but it is
also settled that to know merely the variety, to which the disease
belongs, is not sufficient to cure it. All the successful and
celebrated practitioners of the old school have been such as
have constantly modified and individualized the treatment of disease. This is all that Hahnemann has tried to accomplish;
with this difference that he has individualized' every case of
disease with much more precision than any of. the older physicians had done. Hahnemann had courage enough, at once to
face the contradictions which constantly existed between practice and theory; he declared that the speculative knowledge of
physicians was merely learned dust which they were in the
habit of throwing into people's eyes for the purpose of blinding
them and inducing them to consider the ignorance of the doctors
and the insufficiency of their knowledge as something respectable.
Hahnemann dared to lay down this maxim: that, in treating
disee, he had nothing to do with its name.
Hahnemann teaches that the remedies should be chosen according to the symptoms of the patient. The physician should
be governed by what is certain and safe, not by that which is
more or less uncertain and unsafe, and which is changed according to fashion. Both in the organon and in his treatise on the
chronic diseases, Hahnemann insists upon the remedies being
dhosen in accordance with the symptoms.



DR. BERING'S PREFACE.


5


It is not an easy matter to choose a remedy according to symptoms. This may be inferred from the manner in which tyros
in homceopathy and physicians of the old school who come over
to us, go to work. They constantly rely upon names, giving a
certain remedy in scarlet fever, because some one else had found
it hseful; or a certain remedy in pulmonary inflammation, because it had been successfully exhibited upon a former occasion;
whereas Hahnemann teaches that, because a remedy has helped
before, this is no reason why it should help again in a similar
disease. The symptoms and not the name" are to point out the
remedy. This is also the case in chronic diseases. In the treatment of chronic diseases Hahnemann has been taught by experience to give preference to the anti-psoric remedies. This preference is not theoretical, and is constantly subordinate to the
general'principle.
Hahnemann has never said that the principal constituents of
mountains, which are the most important materials in naturethe metals, for instance---are the most important remedies for the
cure ofthe most universal diseases. However, he has pointed out
the oxydes or salts of ammonium, potassium, sodium, calcium,
aluminium, magnesium, as the most important anti-psoric remedies. Hahnemann has said nowhere that the most important
metalloids constitute the most important remedial agents, although he has introduced sulphur, phosphorus, silicea, chlorine,
and iodine, in one form or another, as anti-psoric remedies. In
selecting a remedy Hahnemann has never been guided by theories, but always by experience. -le chose his remedies agreeably to the symptoms which they had produced upon healthy
persons, looking at the same time. to their remedial virtues having been tested by practice. This is the reason why the general views which have been expressed just now did not prevent
him from admitting as chief anti-psorics borax and anmoemum
carbonicum, anacardium and clematis.
Why, it may be asked, has a great number of homaeopathic
physicians, neither recognised Hahnemann's theory of psora,
nor the specific character of the anti-psoric remedies? Why
have some even gone so far as to set the theory sneeringly aside,
and to decry the anti-psorics as less trustworthy than the other
remedies?
For the same reason that the astronomical discoveries of our



6


DR. HERING'S PREFACE.


Herschel are doubted bypeople who have no faith in the discoverer, and are not able to verify his discoveries. To do this,
knowledge, instruments, talent, care, perseverance, opportunities, and many other things are required. Not one of all these
requisites can be found with those who are mere dabblers in
practice, scribbling authors opposing their own opinions and
imaginations to facts and observation.
Or, for the same reason that Ehrenberg's discoveries cannot
be appreciated by those who have either no microscrope, or who
have one which is not good, or who have a microscope without
understanding the difficult art of using it; or else who know
how to use it, but do not use it with the same exactness and
carefulness as Ehrenberg, who discovered in the chalk-dust of
visiting cards the shells of new species of animals, by simply
making the cards transparent by means of the oil of turpentine.
Or lastly, for the simple reason that physicians find it more
easy to write something for print, than to observe nature; that
it is more easy to impose upon people than to cure the sick, and
because the greater number of physicians is affected with the
delusion that things which they do not see, do not exist.
If such physicians succeed in effecting a cure, they are at once
ready to boast of their exploits, whereas the cure was due to
Hahnemann's doctrine, to the remedies which he has discovered,
to the researches of other physicians, to their instructions or example, or to so-called chance.  But if they do not succeed,
they impute their failure to anything but themselves: it is homceopathy that is deficient; this or that rule is not correct; the
materia medica is at fault; or, if something in Hahnemann's
system does not suit them, they are prone to say that they have
never seen this or that, that they cannot agree with it.  And in
talking in this way, they really imagine to have said something
against the matter itself.
Upon the same ground that Hahnemanncarefully distinguished
from the disease the symptoms which owed their existence to
dietetic transgressions, or to medicinal aggravations; upon the
same grounds that he acknowledged as standing and independent
diseases the acute miasms, known as purpura, measles, scarlatina,
small pox, hoopin'g cough, etc., or that he distinguished the venereal miasm into syphilis and sycosis, we may afterwards, if ex



DR. HERING'S PREFACE.


7


"perience should demand it, subdivide psora into several species
and varieties. This is no objection to Hahnemann's theory.
Hahnemann has taken the first great step without denying the
faculty of progressive development inherent in his system. But
let improvements be made in such a way as to become useful,
not prejudicial, to the patients. We ought to raise our superstructure upon Hahnemann's own ground, in the direction which
he has first imparted to his doctrine.
Although it matters little what opinions the respective disciples of Hahnemann hold relatively to the theory of psora, I will
nevertheless, communicate a short extract from my essay,
" Guide to the Progressive Development of Homceopathy."
"As acute diseases terminate in an eruption upon the skin,
which divides, dries up, and then passes off, so it is with
many chronic diseases. All diseases diminish in intensity,
improve, and are cured by the internal organism freeing itself
from them little by little; the internal disease approaches
more and more to the external tissues, until it finally arrives at
the skin.
" Every homceopathic physician must have observed that the
improvement in pain takes place from above downward; and in
diseases, from within outward. This is the reason why chronic
diseases, if they are thoroughly cured, always terminate in some
cutaneous eruption, which differs according to the different constitutions of the patients. This cutaneous eruption may be even
perceived when a cure is impossible, and even when the remedies have been improperly chosen. The skin being the outermost surface of the body, it receives upon itself the extreme termination of the disease. This cutaneous eruption is not a mere
morbid secretion having been chemically separated from the internal organism in the form of a gas, a liquid, or a solid; it is
the whole of the morbid action which is pressed from within
outward, and it is characteristic of a thorough and really curative
treatment. The morbid action of the internal organism may continue either entirely, or more or less in spite of this cutaneous
eruption. Nevertheless, this eruption always is a favourable
symptom; it alleviates the sufferings of the patient, and generally prevents a more dangerous affection.
" The thorough cure of a widely ramified chronic disease in
the organism is indicated by the most important organs being



8


DR. HERING'S PREFACE.


first relieved; the affection passes off in the order in which the
organs had been affected, the more important being relieved first,
the less important next, and the skin last.
" Even the superficial observer will not fail in recognising
this law of order. An improvement which takes place in a different order can never be relied upon.' A fit of hysteria may
terminate in a flow of urine; other fits may either terminate in
the same way, or in hemorrhage; the next succeeding fit shows
how little the affection had been cured. The disease may take
a different turn, it may change its form, and, in this new form,
it may be less troublesome; but the general state of the organism will suffer in consequence of this transformation.
" Hence it is that Hahnemann inculcates with so much care
the important rule to attend to the moral symptoms, and to judge
of the degree of homceopathic adaptation, existing between the
S   remedy and the disease, by the improvement which takes place
in the moral condition, and the general well-being of the patient.
" The law of order which we have pointed out above, accounts
for the numerous cutaneous eruptions consequent upon homceopathic treatment, even where they never had been seen before;
it accounts for the obstinacy with which many kinds of herpes
and ulcers remain upon the skin, whereas others are dissipated
like snow. Those which remain, do remain because the internal
disease is yet existing. This law of order also accounts for the
insufficiency of violent sweats, whenr the internal disease is not
yet disposed to leave its hiding-place. It lastly accounts for
one cutaneous affection being substituted for another."
t' This transformation of the internal affection of such parts of
the organism as are essential to important functions, to a cutaneous affection-a transformation which is entirely different from
the violent change effected by means of Autenrieth's ointment,
ammonium, croton-oil, cantharides, mustard, etc.-is chiefly
effected by the anti-psoric remedies.
" Other remedies may sometimes effect that transformation,
even the use of water, change of climate, of occupation, etc;
but it is more safely, more mildly and more thoroughly effected
by the anti-psoric remedies."
This latter is altogether an individual opinion; others may
have different opinions relative to the same subject; this needs



DR. HERING' S PREFACE.


9


not to prevent us from aiming all of us at the same end, side by
side, in perfect harmony.
But alas! the rules which the experienced founder of Homceopathy lays down in the subsequent work with so much emphasis, are not always practised, and therefore, cannot be ap..
preciated. Many oppose them; cures which otherwise might
be speedy and certain, are delayed; much injury is being done
by the wiseacres who intrude themselves int; our literature
and mix with it as chaff with the wheat. On all this we may
console ourselves with the expectation that also in the history of Science there will be those great days of harvest,
when the tares shall be gathered in bundles and thrown into the
fire.
It is the duty of all of us to go farther in the theory and practice of Homceopathy than Hahnemann has done. We ought to
seek the truth which is before us and forsake the errors of the"
past. But wo unto him who, on thataccount, should personally
attack the author of our doctrine; he would burthen himself
with infamy. Hahnemann was a great savant, inquirer, and discoverer; he was as true a man, without falsity, candid and open
as a child, and inspired with pure benevolence and with a holy.zeal for science.
When at last the fatal hour had struck for the sublime old
man who had preserved his vigour almost to his last moments,
then it was that.the heart'of his consort who had made his last
years the brightest of his life, was on the point of breaking.
Many of us, seeing those who are dearest to us engaged in the
death-struggle, would exclaim: why should'st thou suffer so
much! So too exclaimed Hahnemann's consort: " Why
should'st thou who hast alleviated so much suffering, suffer in thy
last hour. This is unjust. Providence should have allotted to
thee a painless death."
Then he raised his voice as he had often done when he exhorted his disciples to hold fast to the great principles of Homaeopathy. " Why should I have been thus distinguished I
Each of us should here attend to the duties which God has imposed upon him. Although men may distinguish a more or less,
yet no 'one has any merit. God owes nothing to me, I to him
all."
With these words he took leave of the world, of his friends,



10                DR. HERING'S PREFAC.
and his foes. And here we take leave of you, reader, whether
our friend or our opponent.
To him who believes that there may yet be truths which he
does not know and which he desires to know, will be-pointed out
such paths as will lead him to the light he needs. If he who
has sincere benevolence and wishes to work for the benefit of
all, be considered by Providence a fit instrument for the accomplishment of the divine will, he will be called upon to fulfil
his mission and will be led to truth evermore.
It is the spirit of Truth that tries to unite us all; but the
father of Lies keeps us separate and divided.
C. Hg.
Philadelphia, April 22, 1845.



PREFACE


TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1828.
IF I did not know, for what object I exist upon
earth-" to make myself as good as possible, and to
improve things and men around me to the best of my
ability,--I should have to consider myself deficient in
worldly wisdom for promulgating, before my death,
an art whose sole possessor f was, and which, being
kept secret, might have become a source of permanently increasing profit to me.
In communicating these great discoveries to the public, I cannot help entertaining doubts as to the good
will of my cotemporaries to appreciate the justness of
my doctrines. Will they be practised with care, and
yield to suffering humanity the benefit which must
necessarily be derived from their conscientious application; or will my cotemporaries, intimidated by the
unheard-of newness of my discoveries, prefer leaving
them unexamined, unimitated, and therefore suffer them
to remain useless?
I have no reason to expect that these communications will fare better than my previous publications on
general Homoeopathy. The power of small and highly
diluted doses was doubted; their greater fitness for
effecting a homceopathic cure and the higher development of their dynamic action were overlooked; and
despite of the warning trials which enabled me to recommend small doses as the most appropriate for the



12


PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.


cure of disease, my faithful assurances and reasonings
were disdained, and medical men continued for years
to jeopardize the lives of their patients by large doses,
and were therefore deprived of an opportunity of witnessing the happy results of the homceopathic treatment, as was indeed my own case before I had adopted
the rule of administering small doses.
What would they have risked, if they had first followed my indications and had employed small doses?
The worst which could have befallen them, was, that
these doses would be of no avail. It was impossible
that they should do any harm. But instead of exhibiting small doses, they employed, from a want of sense,
and of their own accord, large doses for homoeopathic
use, thus exposing the lives of their patients and arriving
at truth by that circuitous rout which I had travelled
upon before them with trembling hesitation, but the end
of which I had just reached with success. Nevertheless, after having done much mischief, and having squandered the best period of their lives, they were obliged,
when they were really desirous of chring disease, to
resort to the only true method which I had demonstrated to them a long while ago.
Would that they acted more discreetly in regard to
the discovery which I promulgate in this volume!
And suppose they do not act so,-in that case, a more
conscientious and more intelligent posterity will have
the advantage, by faithfully and correctly applying the
principles developed in these pages, freeing humanity
from the innumerable sufferings which nameless chronic
diseases have heaped upon the poor patients from time
immemorial, and thus conferring upon them a blessing
which the previously taught doctrines of homceopathy
had not been able to realize,



OF THE NATURE OF CHRONIC DISEASES.
THE faithfully practised precepts of the homoeopathicmethod of cure, as it is taught in my own writings and
those of my disciples, have hitherto manifested to all
men, and in a very striking and decisive manner, their
natural advantage over the alloeopathic method, both in
regard to acute diseases as well as epidemics and sporadic fevers.
Venereal diseases have been likewise cured more
safely, more conveniently, more thoroughly and without
any secondary ailments, by the homceopathic practice;
for it eradicates the internal disease and cures it from
within, by the best specific remedy, without either disturbing or destroying the local affection.
But there remained the chronic diseases which afflict
humanity, and the number of which continued to be immensely large.
The manner in which those diseases had been treated
by alloeopathic physicians, has only served to increase
the sufferings of such patients. By employing a quantity
of disgusting mixtures, compounded by the apothecary
out of large doses of violent medicinal substances, whose
separate effects were unknown, or by using all sorts
of baths, violent diaphoretics or expectorants, pretended
anodynes and sedatives, clysters, ointments, fomentations,
fumigations, vesicatories, cauteries, fontanelles, and especially those everlasting purgatives, leeches, bloodlettings, and methods of starvation, and the various other
fashionable medicinal torments, the disease was either
made worse, and the vital energies, despite of the intermediate use of pretended tonics, were more and more
diminished; or else, in case a striking change had been
obtained, another nameless medicinal disease, being
1



14


much worse and much more incurable than the original
natural disease, was substituted in the place of the previous disturbance; whilst the physician consoled the
patient by saying, that "the old disease had been happily removed; that unfortunately a new disease had indeed made its appearance, but that he was confident he
would conquer this new disease as successfully as the
former." And in this way nothing was done except to
modify the forms of the same disease, to increase it by
the additional sufferings consequent upon the use of improper and noxious medicines, until the complaints of
the poor patient ceased with his last breath, and the relatives were consoled by the delusive excuse, " that
every known remedy had been employed in the case of
the deceased."
How different is God's great, gift, homceopathy! In
these cases of chronic disease to which I have just alluded, and provided the patients had not been too much
ruined by the alloeopathic practice, (as was unfortunately
too often the case where some money was to be madde
out of the patient,) the homceopathic practitioners, by
practising the precepts contained in the writings which
had then published, and by following-the advice which
I had given on former occasions, both in lectures and
conversations, did infinitely more good by their treatment than all the previously known so-called methods
of cure had been able to accomplish.
By following the method which I had recommended,
and which is much more conformable to nature, the homoeopathic practitioners, having in the first place inquired into and noted down all the perceptible symptoms of the disease, were able to remove it by means
of the smallest dose of a remedy which had been carefully selected among the most appropriate homoeopathic
drugs, whose genuine and true action had been ascertained up to that moment. The improvement which
was obtained by the homoeopathic practitioner, exceeded
all that alloeopathic doctors had ever been able to accomplish by some luckily successful inroad upon their
medicine-chests; for the cure was often accomplished



15


in a very short time, the patient never was deprived of
his strength, as is always the case by the alloeopathic
method of cure, and he was again enabled to enjoy his
life.
The disease yielded in a great measure to a very
small dose of that remedy which had been found capable of producing upon a healthy person the existing series of morbid symptoms; and if the disease was not
too old, and had not been too extensively mismanaged
by alloeopathic practice, the improvement often lasted
for a good while; so that mankind might already deem
themselves fortunate on account of this aid, and very
often did so. The patient who had been thus treated,
might have considered himself almost cured, and very
often did consider himself so, when he made just allowances for the difficulties of his condition previous to the
homoeopathic treatment, and compared it'with the improved state of health which he now enjoyed.'
But, in case the apparently cured disease resulted
from a more extensively developed psora, then a few
excesses at table, a cold, the approach of unusually
rough, damp or stormy weather, sometimes even the
fall season, though mild, but especially winter and a
winterly spring, a violent bodily or mental effort, a concussion of the system consequent upon great external
"* The cures here referred to concern diseases from an imperfectly developed psora. In the treatment of those diseases my followers did not employ the remedies which were
afterwards found to be the principal antipsorics-they were
not known then;-the treatment was carried on by means of
those drugs the pathogenetic effects of which upon the healthy
system corresponded most accurately to the existing symptoms,
and had power to remove them for a time. By means of these
remedies the outbreaking psora was reduced back again to its
latent condition; and, in this way, a sort of cure was effected,
which gave often, for many years, great bodily comfort to young
vigorous persons, who must, on that account, have appeared
really cured to a superficial observer. But the remedies which
were known at that time, were then and are now insufficient for
the complete cure of those chronic diseases where the psoric
poison has established its full action,



16


injuries, or some melancholy, heart-breaking event, frequent fright, deep sorrow and grief, or continual chagrin,
were often sufficient in an enfeebled system, to cause
one or more of the former ailments to reappear after
they had been conquered for a time; and then they
were often accompanied-with a series of new symptoms,
which may not have denoted any more danger than the
former- symptoms did that had yielded to the homoeopatlhic treatment, but which were just as difficult to cure,
and therefore so much more inveterate. Against these
new symptoms the homceopathic physician employed
again, with tolerable success, the remedy which acted
most homoeopathically among the then known drugs, and
the condition of the patient was again improved for a
time. In case the primitive symptoms which had been
cured once already homceopathically, reappeared in consequence of one of the above mentioned causes, the
remedy which had been first employed, helped again,
though less perfectly; and still less so, on being given a
third time. Under these circumstances, the remedy
which had appeared most homeopathic often produced
new symptoms, and, despite of a correct mode of life on
the part of the patient, they yielded but scantily and imperfectly to the best adapted remedies, and often even
remained when the cure was checked by the above mentioned external influences.
Sometimes the chronic malady was arrested in a remarkable manner, for a shorter or longer period, by the occurrence of agreeable circumstances, by some fortunate
improvement in the affairs of the patient-a pleasant journey, a favourable season, and dry uniform weather; in
this case the homoeopathic physician had a right to consider the patient almost cured, and the patient did consider
himself so, provided he was willing to overlook moderate
ailments.  However, this favourable cessation of the
disease never lasted long, and the return, especially the
frequent return of the disease, which induced a repeated
exhibition of the same remedial agents, weakened their
power in a proportionate degree, notwithstanding they
ad been selected with the greatest care according to



17


their homoeopathic nature, and exhibited in the smallest
and most appropriate doses. They finally acted only as
mere palliatives.  Generally, however, after the physician had repeatedly tried to conquer the disease, which
reappeared again and again in a modified form, and in
spite of a correct mode of life and perfect obedience on
the part of the patient, there remained morbid symptoms
which the then known numerous homoeopathic remedies
were unable to extirpate, and often even to diminish.
These symptoms increasing in intensity, and becoming
more and more dangerous by their progressive development, the homceopathic physician lost all power of
checking the onward course of the disease.
This result occurred in the.treatment of all great,
chronic, non-venereal maladies, even when it appeared to
be conducted according to the precepts of homoeopathy,
as far as it was then known. First, the treatment was
satisfactory, then it became less favourable, and finally
hopeless.
Despite of these failures, the doctrine itself has then
been, and will ever be founded upon the unshakeable pillars of truth. Facts have confirmed its excellence, yea,
if this may be said of human things, its infallibility.
The homoeopathic doctrine was the only and first doctrine which made us acquainted with the proper treatment of the great, standing, idiopathic diseases, the old
scarlatina of Sydenham, the modern purple-rash, hooping-cough, croup, sycosis, dysentery; even acute pleuritis and epidemic typhus are promptly cured by a few
small doses of carefully selected homoeopathic remedies.
What then was the reason why the continued homoeopathic treatment of the non-venereal chronic diseases
should have been so unsuccessful? Why should homceopathy have failed in thousands of cases to cure such
chronic ailments thoroughly and forever?
These failures were perhaps owing to the small number of the homoeopathic medicines whose pure action
had been ascertained.
The followers of homneopathy were satisfied with
this excuse.  But the founder of homoeopathy rejected



19


SI observed that the non-venereal chronic diseases, even
after having been repeatedly and successfully removed
by the then known honceopathic remedies, continually
reappeared in a more or less modified form, and with a
yearly increase of disagreeable symptoms. This proved
to me the fact that the phenomena which appeared to
constitute the ostensible disease, ought not to be regarded as the whole boundaries of the disease-otherwise the disease would have been completely and permanently cured by homceopathic drugs, which was not
the case,-but that this ostensible disease was a mere
fragment of a much more deep-seated, primitive evil, the
great extent of which might be inferred from the new
symptoms which continued to appear from time to time.
This showed me that the homoeopathic practitioner ought
not to treat diseases of this kind as separate and completely developed maladies, nor that he ought to expect
such a permanent cure of these diseases as would prevent them from appearing again in the system, either in
their original or in a modified and often more disagreeable form. I became convinced that the first condition
of finding out one or more homceopathic medicines which
should cover all the symptoms characterising the whole
disturbance, was, to discover all the ailments and symptoms inherent in the unknown primitive malady. The
medicines being found out, the physician would then be
able to conquer and completely to extinguish the whole
disease, together with its successively appearing groups
of symptoms.
This primitive disease evidently owed its existence
to some chronic miasm. For as soon as it had reac hed
a certain height, it never yielded to the simple ac lion
of a robust constitution, or to the best regulated di t or
to the treatment of chronic diseases to two of my most deserving
disciples, both for their own benefit and that of their patients. I
did so in order to avoid the danger of seeing my discoveries lost
for mankind. Having reached my 73rd year, it was not improbable, that I should have been called into eternity before
having completed my work.



20


mode of life; on the contrary, it grew worse from year
to year, to the end of life, gradually assuming different
and more dangerous symptoms.*     This is the case
with every chronic,,miasmatic disease,-for instance,
the venereal bubo, when it has become a syphilitic disease on account of its not having been cured from within
by mercury, its specific. Syphilis never becomes extinct
of itself; in spite of the best mode of life and the robustest constitution, it increases from year to year, and
assumes new and more dangerous symptoms to the end
of life.
I had reached this point, when my investigations and
observations upon non-venereal chronic patients led me at
once to perceive that a previously existing itch, which
they often confessed to have had, was the cause why
many diseases that appeared to be separate and coherent
maladies, should not be cured by homoeopathic treatment. All the subsequent sufferings were dated from
the time when the psoric eruption had manifested itself.
In many of these chronic patients, who were unwilling
to confess having had the itch, or who had been too
careless to heed it, or had no recollection of it, I often
discovered, by careful inquiries, that vestiges of the itch
had shown themselves upon their bodies from time to
time, in the shape of small pustules or herpes, etc., as so
many infallible symptoms of the chronic contagion.
These circumstances, coupled with the fact, that
psoric eruptions which had been removed by evil practices or by some other cause, were.evidently followed
in otherwise healthy persons by chronic ailments having
the like or similar symptoms-as had been observed
* Phthisis often passed into. frenzy, drying-up ulcers into
dropsy or apoplexy, intermittent' fever into asthma, affections of
the abdomen into pains in the joints or paralysis, influenza into
hemorrhage,, etc. It was not difficult to perceive that the new
symptoms" were founded in the existing primitive malady, and
could only be parts of a much more extensive disease.


w



21


both by other physicians,* and myself, in an infinite number of cases-left me no doubt about the internal enemy which I had to combat in my medical treatment,
This internal enemy I shall designate by the general
term psora. It is an internal disease,-a sort of internal
itch--and may-exist either with or without an eruption
upon the skin. Little by little I discovered more adequate remedies against this internaldisease, from which
sprang so many sufferings. From the relief which I
obtained by their employment in cases where the patient had no recollection of the itch, I inferred that they
resulted from a psora which had been communicated to
the patient in the cradle, or in some other way, of which
he had no recollection. By carefully inquiring of the
parents or old relatives, I discovered that my suspicion
was well founded.
Investigating with the utmost care the curative power
of the antipsoric remedies which had been discovered
for the last eleven years, I became more and more convinced that the milder as well as the more extensive,
and even the most inveterate chronic diseases, owe their
existence to the psoric miasm.
I found that thousands of tedious ailments, which we
find enumerated in our pathological works under distinct names, originate, with a few exceptions, in this
widely ramified psora. Such diseases are most of those
eruptions upon the skin which have been distinguished
with so much care, and separately denominated by Willan; almost all adventitious formations, from the common even up to the largest sarcomatous tumours, from
the deformities of the finger-nails up to ramollisse-,
ment of the bones and curvatures of the spine, and several other diseases of this kind, in early as well as a more
advanced age; frequent epistaxis, varices of the veins
of the rectum and the anus, blind or flowing hemorrhoids, hemoptysis, hematemesis, hematuria, amenor* More recently, especially, by von Autenrieth, (see Tiibinger Blatter fir Naturwissenschaft und Arzneikunde, sec. vol.,
sec. part.)
1*



23


fountain-head of so many chronic ailments, each of which
appears to be essentially different from the other. But
this difference does not exist, as may be inferred from
the fact, that the various successively appearing symptoms constituting those ailments belong to many of them
in common, and may be cured by the same remedies.
I have already mentioned that all chronic diseases of
mankind-even those which are left to themselves without having been made worse by wrong treatment-are
so inveterate immediately after they have become developed in the system, that, unless they are thoroughly cured
by art, they continue to increase in intensity until the
moment of death. They never disappear of themselves,
nor can they be diminished, much less conquered or
extinguished, by the most vigorous constitution, or the
most regular mode of life and strictest diet. All chronic
diseases, therefore, originate and are based upon fixed
chronic miasms, which enable their parasitical ramifications to spread through the human organism and to grow
without end.
In Europe, as well as in the other continents, we have
been able to discover but three psoric miasms which
cause diseases manifesting themselves by local sympioms, and in which most chronic ailments originate.
These miasms are syphilis, (which I have also termed
the venereal chancre,) sycosis, and then psora, which
forms the basis of the ilch. The last being the most
important, I shall speak of it first.
Though this psora is the oldest, most universal and
most pernicious chronic miasmatic disease, yet it has
been misapprehended more than any other. For thousands of years it has disfigured and tortured mankind;
and; during the last centuries, it has become the cause of
those thousands of incredibly different, acute as well as
chronic, non-venereal diseases, with which the civilized
portion of mankind becomes more and more infected
upon the whole inhabited globe.*
* NotE OF THE TRANSLATOR.--This statement about the progressive increase of disease is erroneous, though it does by no
means invalidate the general truth of the principle. Professor



25


According to the most ancient historical writings which
we possess, psora existed already almost fully developed
in the earliest ages of mankind. Several varieties of psora
have already been delineated by Moses* 3400 years ago.
At that time, however, and always afterwards, among the
Israelites, psora appears to have especially infected the
external parts of the body. This was also the case
among the Greek barbarians, then among the Arabs, and
finally in the uncivilized Europe of the middle ages. It
is riot my object to relate here the different names by
which the various nations have designated the more or
less malignant varieties of leprosy, (external symptoms
ofpsora,) by which the external parts of the body become
variously disfigured.  Names are of no consequence
here, since the essence of this miasmatic itch is every
where the same.
In the middle ages Europe was visited for several
centuries by the frightful psora of the occidental countries, in the shape of a malignant erysipelas, called St.
Anthony's Fire. In the thirteenth century it assumed
again the form of leprosy; the crusaders brought this
latter disease along with them. By this means leprosy
spread in Europe more than it ever had done before, for
in the year 1226 there were in France about 2000
houses for the reception of leprous patients. Neverthe* In the 13th chapter of the third book, and also in the
21st chapter, 20th verse of the same book, where Moses speaks
of the defects which priests destined to do the offering onght not
to have, the malignant itch is designated by the term t3];
the Alexandrian translators render this by 44,pa dypis, the Vul.
gate by scabies jugis.. The interpreter of the Talmud, Jonathan, defines it a dry itch spread over the body; and, according
to him, the expression used by Moses h5^' represents lichen,
herpes. (See Rosenmiiller; scholia in Levit. P. II., edit. sec.,
page 124.) The interpreters of the so-called English bible-work
agree with this definition. Calmet says that " leprosy is like an
inveterate itch, with vehement itching."
The ancients also mention the voluptuous itching, which has
constantly been peculiar to and characteristic of the eruption of
the itch. The scratching is followed by the painful burning.
Plato calls the itch yxvxvirtxpov. Cicero speaks of the dulcedo
of scabies.



*


26
less, psora, spreading farther and farther in the form of
a horrible eruption upon the skin, found at least some
external alleviation in those means of cleanliness which
the crusaders had brought along with them from the
East, such as (cotton? linen?) shirts which had been
unknown in Europe heretofore, and the frequent use
of warm baths. These means, together with an increasing refinement and morelselect nourishment, succeeded,
in a couple of centuries, in diminishing the disgusting
appearance of psora so as to reduce the disease, towards the end of the fifteenth century, to the ordiirary
eruption of the itch. But alas! about this time, in the
year 1493, syphilis, the second miasmatic chronic disease, began to raise its fearful head.
rThe psoric eruption which appeared after infection had
taken place, and which, in civilized countries, had been
reduced to a simple manifestation of the common itch,
was easily driven from the skin by all sorts of cointrivances. By means of baths, lotions, sulphur ointments,
preparations of lead, copper, zinc, and mercury, of which
the middle and higher classes availed themselves, the
psoric eruption was often, and is now so quickly suppressed, that it remained often unknown whether a child
or a full-grown person, in those classes, had been infected with the itch.
But the cause of humanity was not improved by
these proceedings; on the contrary, in many respects it
grew worse. During the centuries when the psoric
eruption was first known in the form of leprosy, the
patients, though they suffered much in consequence
of lancinating pains in the tumours and scabs, and the
vehement itching all around, enjoyed nevertheless a fair
share of general health. For, the obstinately lasting eruption upon the skin served as a substitute for the internal
psora; and, what is more, the horrible and disgusting
appearance of leprous patients made such an impression upon all healthy persons that they were frightened
away already at a distance; in this way the leprous
patients being kept apart from human society in separate houses, the contagion remained limitedl and was,
comparatively speaking, rare.



27
The milder forms of psora which appeared again, as
has been mentioned before, during the 14th and 15th
centuries, in the shape of the itch, infected a far greater
number than the leprous patients were able to do, whose
frightful appearance caused them to be carefully avoided
by every body. The itch vesicles do scarcely appear,
and may be easily kept concealed; but being constantly scratched open in consequence of the intolerable itching, and the fluid being spread over the skin and'those
things which had been touched by such patients, the
infection, being concealed, takes place the more easily,
and certainly, and affects a greater number.
In this way psora has become the most contagious
and the most universal of the chronic miasms.
This miasm has generally already been communicated before the patient uses some external remedy (leadwater, mercurial ointment) against the eruption. Often
he does not even admit having had the itch; perhaps
he did not know it; and it even happens that the physician or the surgeon are ignorant of the nature of the
eruption which is repelled by lead-water, &c.
It may be easily conceived that, among persons of the
inferior classes, who suffer the eruption to grow upon the
skin until they become objects of horror to their fellow
beings, the infection must have been widely spread by
such patients before they do something towards removing the eruption.
'Phe more concealed and proportionately easier and
more frequent infection of the itch is not the only disadvantage which has resulted for mankind from the psoric
miasm having been reduced from leprosy to the common itch.  There is another disadvantage, which is
this, that the essence of this reduced psora is unchanged, that it is equally formidable as before, and that, being more easily repelled from the skin, it appears so
much more imperceptibly upon the inner surfaces; the
chief symptom, which is the external eruption, having
been suppressed,* it produces an innumerable quantity
* The itch may not only be removed by the evil practice of physicians and quacks; it often leaves the skin of



of secondary chronic ailments. Physicians lose sight
of the origin of that host of secondary morbid sympitself, as may be seen below from the observations of older physicians, in Nos. 9, 17, 26, 86, 50, 58, 61, 64, 65. In this respect
syphilis and sycosis have an advantage over psora. In syphilis
ve have the chancre or bubo, and in sycosis the cauliflower excrescence, which never leave the external parts, until they have
either been destroyed by external applications or else have been
removed by a rational cure, together with the whole of the internal disease. Hence syphilis, and the secondary symptoms of
sycosis, are impossible as long as the chancre or the cauliflower
excrescence are not violently removed from the external parts,
Both chancre and cauliflower excrescence are external, unchangeable local substitutes for the internal disease, leaving it latent to
the end of life, and enabling the practitioner to cure the internal
disease by the appropriate internal remedies, which ought to be
continued until the local substitutes have disappeared without
any external applications. As soon as this shall have taken
place, both syphilis and sycosis are thoroughly cured,
In the last three centuries, the psoric miasm, which now manifests itself in the shape of the common itch, has been losing this
benian character. The itch does not remain upon the skin as constantly and invariably as either chancre or cauliflower excrescence.
Although the eruption is often removed by the evil practice of physicians and quacks, by desiccating washes, by salves of sulphur,
drastic purgatives or cupping, yet it often disappears of itself,
as it is called, without any known cause. It often disappears
in consequence of an untoward physical or moral impression,
violent fright, permanent chagrin, deep grief, violent catarrh,
cold air, (as may be seen below, No. 67,) cold, tepid and warm
mineral and river baths, a fever which may have resulted from
any cause, or some other acute disease, (small-pox, see No. 39,)
continuous diarrhcea, or perhaps a peculiar want of action in the
skin; in all these cases the consequences are just as bad as if
the eruption had been removed by irrational medical treatment.
The secondary symptoms of the internal psora, and some one of
the innumerable chronic diseases which owe their existence -to
this cause, break out sooner or later after the external eruption
has disappeared by any of the above named causes.
Nevertheless it ought not to be supposed that the psoric miasm,
as manifested by the milder eruption, is essentially different
from the ancient leprosy. Recent leprosy was, in old times,
often removed from the skin by cold bathing, frequent ablutions
in rivers, warm mineral baths, (see No. 35;) but the old physicians heeded the evil consequences of such a treatment no more
than the modern do the acute affections and the lingering maladies which constantly appear as results of the internal psora,
after the voluntary or violent removal of the external eruption.



30


matic diseases is only then difficult and tedious when
they are complicated with psora. Psora is most easily
overlooked and misapprehended, and is, for this reason,
treated in the worst and most pernicious manner.
Modern physicians, even the most distinguished, without excepting almost any, either teacher or author, have
established the rule, and have given it almost as an infallible proposition, " that every psoric eruption is a mere
local affection of the skin, with which the organism has
nothing to do; that the eruption may be unhesitatingly
removed by sulphur ointments, by the more active ointment of Jasser, by sulphur fumigations, by solutions of
lead or zinc, but most speedily by mercurial preparations; that health is restored as soon as the external
eruption has been removed; that it is indeed true that,
by neglecting the eruption and leaving it upon the skin,
the morbid matter may be finally absorbed into the humours; that it may deteriorate the blood, and ruin the
general health; that these perverted humours may however be easily removed out of the system by purgatives
and bloodlettings; but that all these secondary diseases
may bt entirely avoided by speedily removing the eruption from the skin." There never was taught a doctrine
which has been more fraught with evil consequences
for mankind.
Such horrible untruths were not only taught.formerly,
but they are taught and even practised in our days. In
the most celebrated civil and military hospitals of the
most enlightened countries and cities, and also among
private patients of all classes, in prisons and orphan asylums, in short, all those who are affected with the itch,
are ordered, by common as well as distinguished physicians, to use external applications for the purpose of removing the eruption the sooner the better,* (as they
* These gentlemen, agreeably to the fanciful notion which
they have fashioned of the nature of this important disease, assert that, in this case, the psoric miasm has not had time to be
absorbed into the humours and to deteriorate them. But suppose the first little itch vesicle, the voluptuous itching of which
excites a continual desire for scratching, which is followed by



31


imagine;) they may use perhaps large quantities of
flowers of sulphur internally, and some strong purgatives, with a view, as they suppose, of cleansing the
system. This being done, they impudently assert that
the disease is cured, and the patients are dismissed *
without the least regard for the secondary ailments
which will certainly sooner or later manifest themselves
as results of the psoric reaction. t
The deceived and unfortunate patients sooner or
later return to the hospital, affected with the unavoidable
consequences of the former treatment, such as swellings,
obstinate pain in various parts of the body, hypochondria, hysteria, gout, consumption, tubercular phthisis,
spasmodic asthma, blindness, deafness, paralysis, carcinoma of the bones, cancerous ulcers, spasms, hemorrhage, diseases of the mnhd and the soul, etc. Tliese are
the burning pain, should prove, as we shall see below, that the
psoric disease was already formed and completely developed in
the inmost depths of the organism? What is to be done, if
every removal of the eruption by external applications, so far
from diminishingr the violence of the internal malady, forces it,
as is shown by thousands of facts, to break forth either in a vast
number of acute affections, or else gradually to ramify into a
host of chronic ailments, that torture mankind and paralyse their
strength?  Can these be cured by the ordinary methods?. Experience shows that they cannot.
"* It sometimes happens that in vigorous patients affected
with the itch, the eruption which had been removed by salves
and purgatives, is brought out again by the vital power, (whose
instinctive wisdom, being based upon a natural law, is superior
to the understanding of its destroyers.) The patient then returns to the hospital, and the treatment by ointments and washes
of zinc or lead in solution is renewed. To my knowledge, this
pernicious removal of the eruption by external applications has
been repeated three times in succession in military hospitals by
senseless and homicidal quacks, their excuse being that the
patient had caught the itch at three different periods, which is
impossible.
t I wrote this six years ago; but even at this moment the
same criminal doctrines are taught by physicians of the old
school. In this most important of all medical interests, they
have neither become wiser nor more charitable by one hair's
breadth.



32


considered new diseases, and, without suspecting their
origin, treated according to the usual routine of therapeutics. But the remedies are directed against phantoms, imaginary causes, until, after many years of increasing suffering, death ensues, and frees the patients
from the hands of the doctor.*
In the treatment of psora the older physicians were
much more conscientious than modern doctors are, and
they were much more enlightened observers.    Their
practice was based upon experience, which showed them
that the removal of the psoric eruption from the skin by
external applications was followed by innumerable ailments, and the most grievous chronic maladies. Hence
they concluded that every case of itch originated in
some internal disease, which they endeavoured to cure,
as well as possible, by an innumerable quantity of their
therapeutic agents. Of course, their endeavours were
fruitless, for they were ignorant of the only true method
of curing psoric diseases, which it was reserved for
homceopathy to reveal to the world. Nevertheless,
their efforts being aimed at removing the internal disease, which had given origin to the eruption upon the
skin, they deserve much praise. In this respect the
older physicians differ from the modern, whose chief object is to remove the itch from the skin as though it
were a mere cutaneous disease, without dreaming of
ihe subsequent injuries which the older physicians have,
in a thousand instances, exhibited in their works as
warning examples.
* By a kind of accident the patients were sometimes directed
to use sulphur baths. But this direction was given without the
doctor knowing why he gave it; it was mere empiricism, for
he gave this direction because he had exhausted his whole stock
of remedies, and did not know what else to prescribe. By these
baths the chronic disease often disappeared for a time, but afterwards returned either with the same or analogous symptoms;
in this case it was useless to resort again to the bath, because
the cure of psora which has ceased to be latent, requires a much
more adequate treatment than the brutal use of sulphur baths
can afford.



38


114,18 and Jahrgang, 1723, p. 29,'9 and Jahrgang, 1722,
p. 459;' Jerzembsky, Diss. Scabies Salubris in H ydrope,
Halae, 1777;"1 Karl Wenzel, die Nachkrankheiten von
Zurtickgetretener Krditze, Bamb. 1826, p. 49.'
Pleurisy and cough.-Pelargus, Jahrg. 1722, p. 79.23
Violent cough.-Hundertmark, p. 23.Y'
Hemoptysis.
Hemoptysis and consumption.-Chn. Max. Spener,
Diss. de jEgro Febri Maligna, Phthisi Complicata Laborante, Giess., 1699;"2 Sicelius, Praxis Casual. Exerc.
III. cas. I. Francf. and Lips.,'1743;2 Morgagni, XXI.
art. 32;6 Unzers, Arzt, CCC. p. 508.'
fortnight the itch had broken out again, and he felt relieved. He
had a relapse, the itch dried in again, and he died 13 days after.
(18) A thin man died of inflammation of the chest and other
ailments, 20 days after the itch had been removed.
(19) A boy of 7 years, whose tenia and itch dried away from
Sthe skin, died, after the lapse of 4 days, of an acute fever accompanied with asthma and expectoration.
(20) A young man who removed his itch by means of a leadointment, died in 4 days of a disease of the chest.
(21) Anasarca was quickly relieved by the itch breaking out
again. Being suppressed again in consequence of a violent cold,
pleurisy came on and death ensued in 3 days.
(22) A country lad was attacked with an acute fever, pleurisy,
dyspncea, etc., in consequence of having had the itch suppressed
by sulphur ointment 6 weeks before those diseases.
(23) A boy of 13 years, in whom the itch dried in, had
cough and stitches in the chest. These symptoms disappeared after the itch had come out again.
(23*) A man of 36 years had the itch removed 16 months
ago by an ointment of lead and mercury; ever since then he suf-.
fered of a convulsive cough, combined with great anguish.
(24) A young man of 18 years had the itch removed by a black
ooking wash. A few days after, he was seized with chills
and heat, weariness, anguish, headache, nausea, violent thirst,
cough, difficult breathing; he spit blood in coughing, he began
to talk delirious, his face became dead-coloured and emaciated,
the urine looked blood-redý without sediment.
(25) In a young man of 18 years, whose itch had been removed by a mercurial ointment.
(26) The itch disappeared of itself, and was succeeded by a
lingering fever and fatal expectoration of pus; the left lung was
found full of pus.
(27) A robust-looking candidate for the ministry, wishing to



39


Collection of pus in the chest.-F. A. Waitz, Med.
Chir. Aufsatze, Th. I., p. 114, 115."
Sacculated bags full of pus in the intestines.-Schubert, Diss. de Scab, Hum. Lips., 1779, p. 23.1
Great degeneration of a large portion of the intestines.-J. H. Schulze, in Act. Nat. Cur., Tom. I., obs.
231.30
Degeneration of the brain.-Bonet, Sepulchretum
Anat., sect. IV., obs. I., ~ 1,"3 and ~ 2.
Hydrocephalus.
Ulcers upon the stomach.-L. Chn. Juncker, Diss. do
Scabie Repulsa, Hal. 1750, p. 16,~
Sphacelus of the stomach and duodenum.-Hundertmark, p. 29.3
free himself from is old itch on account of being obliged to preach
in a few days, covered himself with an itch-ointment in the morning. In a few hours he was attacked with anxiety, short breathing, and tenesmus, and died immediately after noon; on opening the body the whole lungs were seen filled with liquid pus.
(28) Empyema consequent upon repelled itch, which had
come out a few years ago, especially in the months of March
and April.
(29) A young man, heedless of the warning of the excellent
physician and professor, Krause, died of constipation in consequence of having used a sulphur ointment against the itch which
had broke olit again upon his skin. Collections of pus were
found in his intestines.
(30) The diaphragm and liver were also diseased.
(31) "A little prince of two years had tenia removed by ointments. After his death much bloody water was found under the
skull.
(32) In a woman who died on account of having used a wash
for the removal of tenia, one half of the brain was found putrefied and filled with yellow pus.
(33) A rich man of a cholerico-sanguine temperament, had a
gouty affection of the abdomen, and pain like that consequent
upon stone. He removed the gout by all sorts of remedies.
After this the itch broke out. The eruption having been removed, an ulcer formed on the stomach, which caused his death, as
was made evident by a post-mortem examination.
(34) A boy of seven weeks, and a young man of 18 years, died
all on a sudden in consequence of the itch having been removed
by sulphur ointment. In the body of the former the ujper portion
of the stomach immediately below the orifice, and in the latter



40


General dropsy.3    Dropsy of the chest.   Soelling
of the scrotum, (in boys.)  Red swelling of the whole
body.
Jaundice. Swelling of the parotid glands. Swelling
of the cervical glands.-Pelargus, Jahrg. 1723, p. 593;:
Unzer, Arzt, Th. VI., St. 301.37
Obscuration of the eyes and presbyopia.-Fr. Hoffmainm, (Consult. Med. I., cas. 50.3
that portion of the duodenum into which the ductus choledechus
communis and the pancreatic duct open, were found destroyed
by sphacelus. A similarly fatal mortification of the stomach
occurred in a journeyman. See Morgagni, LV., art. 11.
(35) Innumerable cases of such dropsy may be found in a vast
number of authors, among whom I shall simply refer to J. D.
Fick, Exercit. Med. de Scabie Retropulsa, Hal. 1710, ~ 6. He
mentions a case of itch that, having been suppressed by mercurial ointment, produced dropsy. This was only alleviated by the
reappearance of the dropsy.
The author of Epidemion, which is attributed. to Hippocrates,
has been the first to mention, in No. 4, of the fifth book, the sad
result which has been alluded to in the preceding paragraph.
An Athenian was seized with a violently itching eruption, which
was not unlike the eruption of lepra, and which extended over
the whole body, and especially the genital organs. The eruption having been suppressed by warm baths upon the island of
Melos, the patient died of subsequent dropsy.
(36) A boy of 8 or 9 years had tenia, which was suppressed
by ointment. There was much swelling of the cervical glands,
which made the neck crooked and stiff.
(37) A youth of 14 years had the itch in June, 1761. It was
suppressed by means of a gray ointment. In consequence of
this suppression, his parotid glands swelled considerably. The
swelling of the left disappeared of itself, but the rioht became
enormously enlarged, and, towards August, painfuT. All the
cervical glands were swollen. The large ones on the outside
felt hard and knotty; but on the inside there was an obtuse pain,
especially during night; moreover, he suffered of difficult breathing and swallowing. All attempts at causing the glands to suppurate, remained fruitless; they grew so large that the patient
finally died of suffocation in the year 1762.
(38) A girl of 13 years was attacked with the itch, especially
in the joints, upon the face and the pudenda. The itch having
been suppressed by means of zinc and sulphur ointments, the
girl's sight became affected. She saw dark bodies floating before
her face, which might also have been seen floating in the aque



41


Inflammation of the eyes.--Hallmann, in Konigl. Vetenskaps Handl. f. A. X. S. 210.3"
Lenticular cataract.-Chr. Gottlieb Ludwig, Advers.
Med., Tom. II. S. 157.4o
Complete amaurosis.-Northof, Diss. de Scabie, Gotting. 1792, S. 10;4 Clir. G. Ludwig;'" Fabricius ab
Hiiden, Cent. II., obs. 39.'
Deafness. Inflammation of the bowels. Hemorrhoids.
-Acta Helvet. V. S. 192;4 Daniel, Syst. Egrit. II., S.
245.46
Abdominal complaints.-Fr. Hoffmann, Med. Rat.
Syst. II., S. 177.46
Diabetes, (suppression of urine.)-Morgagni, XLI.,
art. 2.7'
ous humour of the anterior chamber. She was unable to perceive little objects unless she used spectacles. The pupils were
dilated.
(39) A girl had a violent eruption of the itch on her legs, together with large ulcers in the bent of the knee. Being attacked
with the small-pox, the itch was suppressed. This suppression
induced a moist inflammation of the white of the eye and the eyelids, which lasted for two years, and was accompanied with itching and suppuration of the lids, and a sensation of dark bodies
floating before the eyes.  After this she put on for three
days woollen stockings having been worh by a child affected
with the itch. On the third day a fever broke out, with dry
cough, dyspncea, and an inclination to vomit. Next day the
fever and the symptoms in the chest abated. Sweat broke out,
which increased until erysipelas appeared on both legs, which
became true itch on the day following. The eyes improved.
(40) A man of robust constitution, whose itch had been suppressed by ointment, was seized with cataract.
(41) Suppression of the itch caused amaurosis, which disappeared when the eruption broke out again.
(42) A robust man, whose itch had been suppressed, was attacked with complete amaurosis and remained blind up to an advanced age.
(43) Complete amaurosis from a similar cause with terrible
headache.
(44) Hemorrhoids re-appeared every month.
(45) Suppression of the itch was followed by a loss of blood
of eight pounds within a few hours, colic, fever, etc.
(46) Suppression of the itch was followed by the most violent colic, pain in the left lumbar region, uneasiness, lingering
fever, anxiety, and obstinate constipation.
(47) In a young peasant, suppression of the itch was followed



42


Erysipelas.-Unzer, Arzt, Th. V. p. 301.4S
Discharges of acrid pus.     Ulcers.-Unzcr, Arzt,
Th. V. p. 301;9 Pelargus, Jahrg. 1723, p. 673 w6
Breslauer Samml. 1727, p. 107;" Muzell, Wahrehm.
11. cas. 6;" Riedlin, son, Cent. obs. 3a."
Cancer of the bones.    Osteosarcoma of the knee.
Pain in the bones. Rachitis and emaciation in children.
Fever.-Ramazzini, Const. Epid. Urbis, II. No. 32,
1691;" J. C. Carl, in Act. Nat. Cur., VI. obs. 16."
by suppression of the urine, vomiting, and sometimes a pain in
the left loin. Afterwards there was an occasional flow of urine,
but in a small quantity and painful. The urine was dark red.
They tried in vain to evacuate the bladder by means of a catheter.  At last his whole body was distended; slow difficult
breathing came on, and he died twenty-one days after the suppression of the itch. The bladder contained two pounds of dark
red urine; and the abdominal cavity contained water which, when
kept for some time over the fire, formed a thick substance like the
white of an egg.
(48) A man having suppressed his itch by mercurial ointment,
he had an erysipelatous inflammation on the neck, which ended
his life in five weeks.
(49) A woman having used mercurial ointment against the
itch, she had an eruption all over the body, which caused whole
pieces of flesh to rot away, and ended her life in a few days
amidst violent pain.
(50) A young man of 16 years having lost his itch, which he
had had for some time, ulcers broke out on the legs.
(51) A man of 50 years having suppressed his itch, he had
tearing pains for five weeks in the left axilla, after which several ulcers were forming in the pit.
(52) A quack gave a student an ointment against the itch.
It disappeared, but an ulcer formed in the mouth, which could
not be cured.
(53) A student who had been afflicted with the itch, suppressed it by an ointment. The suppression was followed by ulcers on the arms and legs, with glandular swellings in the
axilla. The ulcers having been cured by external remedies, he
was attacked with asthma, then with dropsy, and he finally died.
(54) Many observations may be made when the suppression
of the itch was followed by fever and blackish urine, and when,
after the reappearance of the itch, the fever disappeared and the
urine resumed its healthy colour.
(55) A man and a woman had the itch upon their hands for
many years. Each suppression of the itch was followed by an



44


Fever.-Hochstetter, Obs. Med. Dec. VIII., cas. 8;"
Wehle, Diss. Nullam     Medicinam   Interdum  esse Optimam, Witemb. 1754;6 Fick. ~ 1;7 Amatus, Lusit.
ing with heat, quick pulse and morning sweat. These symptoms were combined with great sinking of strength, talking delirious, anxious tossing about and groaning, breathing with suffocation. In spite of all medicines, the disease ended in death.
(64) The spontaneous suppression of the itch in a boy was
succeeded by fever. The itch coming out again, the fever disappeared. But the child grew thin, and the itch dried in a second time; diarrhoea, convulsions, and soon after, death, were
the consequences of this suppression.
(65) The itch disappeared of itself; this was followed by a
lingering fever, expectoration of pus, and at last death. The
left lung was found full of pus.
(66) A woman of 30 years had for a long time pain in the
joints and a considerable eruption of itch; she removed it by an
ointment. This was followed by fever, with violent heat, thirst
and violent headache, combined with talking delirious, immense
asthma, tumefaction of the body, and great distention of the abdomen. Six days after the breaking out of the fever she was
dead. The abdomen contained only much air; the stomach,
which was replete with air, filled up half of the abdomen.
(67) A man whose tenia had been suppressed by cold, was
seized with a malignant fever and vomiting, eight days after the
suppression; at last hiccup came on and the patient died on the
ninth day.
In the same article, Morgagni quotes the case of a man affectted with porrigo on the arms and other parts, which he removed
by means of a shirt fumigated with sulphur. He was immediately seized with drawing pains in the whole body, and fever,
which prevented him from resting in the night, or from stirring
from his place in day time. Tongup and fauces were also affected with the malady. With much trouble the eruption was
brought out again upon the skin, and he recovered.
(68) Suppression of the itch was followed by a malignant
fever and opisthotonos.
(69) In a young merchant, the suppression of the itch was
suddenly followed by such a hoarseness that he was unable to
utter a loud syllable; this was followed by dry asthma, loathing
of food, violent cough, which tormented him, especially during
the night, and robbed him of sleep; excessive and badly smelling
night sweats, and finally death, in spite of all medical treatment.
(70) A mayor of sixty years had the itch, which caused him
much suffering, especially in the night. He used many remedies against it in vain. A mendicant at last taught him a remedy



46


Convulsions.-Welle, Diss. Nullam Medicinam Interdum  esse Optimam, Viteb, 1754, ~ 13, 14;7 Sicelius, Decas Casuum     I. cas. 5;' Pelargus, Jahrg.
1723, p. 545."
the suppression of the itch; the consequence was that her menses became irregular, and were often interrupted for ten or fifteen weeks; moreover she was constipated. Four years ago,
being pregnant, she was seized with vertigo; while standing or
walking she fell to the floor when an attack came on. In the
sitting position she retained her senses during an attack; she
was able to speak, to eat, and to drink. When the attack came
on there was a sensation of crawling and formication in the left
foot, which terminated in the foot being violently raised up and
down. The attacks gradually deprived her of her senses, and
on a journey, in a carriage, she was attacked with real epilepsy,
which returned three times during the winter. During these attacks she was unable to speak; the thumbs were not clenched,
but there was foam at the mouth. The sensation of formication
in the left foot announced the attack; when this sensation had
reached the pit of the stomach, the fit came on. A woman removed this epilepsy by means of five powders; after this the
vertigo reappeared with much greater violence than before: this
too began with a sensation of crawling in the left foot, which
rose to the pit of the stomach; this sensation was combined
with great anxiety and fear, as though she fell from a height;
she then became speechless, lost her senses, and the limbs were
convulsively agitated. Even between the attacks her feet now
are extremely painful to the slightest touch, like boils. Moreover, she has a violent pain and heat in the head, and her memory is gone.
(77) Suppression of the itch, in a girl, was followed by a deep
swoon, horrible convulsions, and finally death.
(78) A girl of 17 years was affected with tenia, which disappeared of itself. After this she constantly had heat in the head
and attacks of headache. Sometimes she suddenly started up
as if by fright, and while waking she had convulsions, especially
of the arms and hands; oppression in the pit of the stomach,
consequent upon constriction of the chest; whining, then came
on convulsions and startings of the limbs.
(79) Tenia dried in a full-grown man who had been affected
for some years with tremor of the hands. This caused great
lassitude; red patches, without heat, broke out all over his body;
the tremor now passed into convulsive shaking, he coughed up
bloody matter through the nose, the ears, and from the chest,
and he died amidst convulsions on the twenty-third day.



47


Epileptic convulsions. Epilepsy.-J. C. Carl, in Act.,
Nat. Cur. VI. obs. 16;80 E. Hagendorn, Hist. 9; Fr.
Hoffmann, Consult. Med. I. cas. 31;2 Fabr. de Hilden,
Cent. III. obs. 10;83 Riedlin, Lin. Med. Ann. 1696,
Maj. obs. 1;" G. W. Wedel, Diss. de XEgro Epileptico. Jen. 1673;" Herrm. Grube, de Arcanis Medicor.
non Arcanis, Hafn. 1673. p. 165; Tulpius, Obs. lib.
I. cap. 8;87 Th. Thompson, Medic. Rathpflege, Leipsic, 1779, p. 107, 108;8   Hundertmark, p. 32;     Fr.
Hoffinann, Consult. Med. I., cas. 28, p. 141.9
(80) A man who had suppressed his frequently-returning itch
by ointments, was attacked with epileptic fits, which disappeared
on the reappearance of the eruption upon the skin.
(81) A young man of 18 years suppressed his itch by means
of a mercurial ointment. Two months after, he was seized all
on a sudden with convulsions attacking all the limbs of his
body; they were accompanied with painful constriction of the
chest and neck, coldness of the limbs and great weakness. On
the fourth day epilepsy came on, with foam at the mouth and
strange contortion of the limbs. The fits ceased the moment
the itch broke out again.
(82) In a boy whose tenia had been suppressed by almond oil.
(83) In children, accompanied with suffocating catarrh.
(84) Epilepsy came on in a servant girl after the itch had been
suppressed twice.
(85) A youth of 18 years had fits of epilepsy after having
suppressed the itch by mercurial ointment a few weeks before.
The fits returned in four weeks, about new moon.
(86) A boy of 7 years was attacked with epilepsy. The parents were unwilling to admit that it came from suppressed itch.
The mother at last confessed to the. carefully inquiring physician that the boy had had a few itch vesicles on the soles of the
feet, which had soon yielded to lead ointment; but there had
been no other eruption on any part of the body. The physician
considered this, and correctly so, the cause of the fit.
(87) Two children were freed from epilepsy by the eruption
6f moist tenia; the fits however returned as soon as the tenia
had been suppressed.
(88) Itch which had lasted for five years, disappeared from
the skin; this disappearance caused epilepsy after a couple of
years.
(89) A young man of 20 years had his itch suppressed by
means of a purge. In consequence of this suppression he suffered for two years the most violent convulsions, until the itch
was brought out again by birch-juice.
(90) A young man of seventeen years suppressed his itch;



48


Apoplexy. Paralysis.-Unzer, Arzt, VI. p. 301;
Hundertmark, p. 33;*      Schubert, Diss. de Scabie
Human. Corp. Lips. 1779, p. 23.'
Melancholy-Reil, Memorab. Fasc. III. p. 177."9
Frenzy.-Brune, Diss. Casus Aliquot Mente Alienatorum, Hal.    1707,   cas. I. p. 5;9  F. H.    Waitz,
he was of a robust constitution and had a sound understanding.
After the suppression of the itch, three years ago, he was first attacked with hemoptysis, then with epilepsy, which grew worse
by medicine, so that he had two attacks in an hour. A surgeon
procured him relief for four weeks, by bleeding and medicines.
But soon after the fits returned during a nap, and he had two or
three attacks every night, accompani6d with an intense cough and
a suffocating catarrh, especially during the night; with all this
he threw up a fetid liquid. He was obliged to keep his bed.
At last he had ten fits during the night and eight during, the day;
the fits were caused by taking much medicine. Nevertheless
the thumbs were never clenched during an attack, nor was there
any foam at the mouth. His memory is now weakened. The
fits came on a little before the time of the meals, but principally
after the meals. During the nightly attacks he remains in the
deepest sleep without waking up. In the morning he feels bruised all over. The only indication of a coming fit is his rubbing the
nose and drawing up the left foot, after which he suddenly falls.
(91) A woman's leg became paralysed, and remained so through
suppressed itch.
(92) Hemiplegia ensued in a man of 53 years, after suppression of the itch by mercurial ointment.
(93) A minister had for a long time used internal remedies
against the itch; of these remedies he got at last tired. He
therefore employed ointments. The consequence was that the
upper extremities became paralysed, and that a hard and thick
skin formed in the palm of the hands, itching terribly and marked with bloody, shrivelled patches. At the same place mention
is made of a woman whose finger contracted in consequence of
suppressed itch. The contractions lasted long.
(94) Suppression of the itch was succeeded by melancholy
and imbecility, which disappeared on the reappearance of the
itch.
(95) A student of 20 years caught the itch. His hands became covered with it to such an extent tiat he was unfit for his
business. The itch was suppressed by means of an ointment.
Shortly after he became deranged, sang or laughed where it was
improper to do so, and ran until he fell down exhausted. His
sickness increased from day to day, until finally hemiplegia



49


Medic. Chirurg. Aufsitze, Th. I. p. 130;      Grossman, in Baldinger's Neuem Magazin. XI. 1.'
These few cases, drawn from the writings of the
older physicians and from my own experience," are
sufficient to convince the intelligent observer that the
itch, together with its varieties, tenia capitis, crusta
lactea, herpes, etc., are the external vicarious symptoms
of an internal disease affecting the whole organism,
and thatpsora is the most pernicious of all chronic
miasms. After reading the above cases no reasonable
and inquiring physician will dare to assert that the itch, tenia, herpes, etc., are mere cutaneous diseases, which may
unhesitatingly be removed from the skin by external applications, because the organism is not affected by them.
This kind of treatment is the most pernicious, the most
infamous and the most unpardonable malpractice of which
allceopathic physicians have made themselves guilty.
He who is blind against the wisdom which the above
quoted examples teach, wilfully prepares the ruin of
mankind.
came on and he died. The intestines cohered like a firm mass.
They were interspersed with little ulcers, with protuberances of
the size of walnuts, which were filled with a viscid substance
resembling plaster.
(96) The same phenomena.
(97) A man of 50 years was attacked with anasarca on account of having suppressed his itch by ointments. The itch returned and the dropsical swelling disappeared. A second suppression was followed by frenzy, with head and neck swelled
up to suffocation, lastly there supervened blindness and complete suppression of urine. Artificial stimulants applied to the
skin, and strong emetics brought the itch out again. After it
had spread over the whole body, all the former accidents disappeared.
* An opponent from the old school has reproached me with
not having shown, by examples from my own experience, that
chronic ailments, which neither originated in syphilis nor
in sycosis, are all of them derived from repelled psora. I
should like to know whether examples, were they even drawn
from my own experience, can be moe strikingly convincing
than those which I have quoted from both old and modern alloeopathic works t Have not our opponents from the old school
often denied us belief, because our observations were not made



50


Are my opponents ignorant of the fact, that all
miasmatic diseases, accompanied with cutaneous eruptions, observe the same course from their very origin?
and that all miasms first attack the whole organism internally, before the vicarious affection manifests itself
upon the skin?
By examining that course a little more closely, we
shall find that all miasmatic diseases which form local
affections upon the skin, are internal diseases, the last
result of which is the local cutaneous affection. In
acute diseases, the local symptoms, together with the
disease, leave the system as soon as they have run
through their regular course. In chronic diseases,
however, the local affection may either be removed or
disappear of itself, without the internal disease leaving
the organism either in part or entirely; on the contrary,
the internal disease may increase in the progress of time,
unless it is cured by art.
This circumstance relative to the course of chronic
diseases, deserves so much more to be noticed, as the
common physicians, especially the modern, have, from
sheer blindness, overlooked it, although it was evidently
the course of all acute miasmatic diseases. They
neither suspected nor noticed that the local affection was
a secondary vicarious symptom of an internal disease;
on the contrary, they often denied the existence of the
internal disease, and by removing the bubo, cauliflower
excrescence and itch by external applications, they
brought ineffable misery upon mankind.
In considering the formation of these three chronic
maladies, as well as that of the acute miasmatic diseases, three cardinal points ought to be noticed much
more carefully than has been the case heretofore. These
are, 1st, the period when the infection took place; 2nd, the
before their own eyes, and the names of the patients were only indicated by a letter, as if private patients were willing to have
their names presented in full? I did not wish to expose myself to similar proceedings. Moreover,- by quoting the cases of
honest practitioners of the old school, I furnmish the most indubitable and impartial proofs for my doctrines.



51


period when the whole organism began to be tainted
with the miasmatic poison, until it had become a complete internal disease; and, 3rd, the manifestation of the
external symptoms, by means of which nature indicates
the complete development of the miasmatic disease in
the internal organism.
My opinion is, that the miasmatic infection in acute as
well as in chronic diseases, takes place in a moment,
provided this moment is favourable to tile contagious influence.
During the progress of inoculation or vaccination, the
infection takes place at the time when the morbid matter introduced under the bleeding skin, is brought in
contact with the exposed nerve. The whole nervous
system becomes infected in a moment. After the infection has taken place, ablutions, cauterization and
burnings are unavailable to annihilate the disease, or
even to arrest its progress in the internal organism.
Even amputation of the part infected is of no avail.
The human small-pox, the cow-pox, the measles, etc.,
will run through their course, and the fever which is
peculiar to each of those different forms of infection, together with the cutaneous eruption, will break out a
few days after the internal disease shall have completed
its development.*
"* The question whether any miasmatic infection by the skin
can exhibit external symptoms before the internal disease has
become completely developed, ought to be answered in the negative.
Do not three, four or five days elapse after vaccination before
inflammation sets in? Does not a sort of fever, which is the
symptom of a disease pervading the whole organism, show itself before the small-pox reaches its full development on the 7th
or 8th day?
Do not ten or twelve, days elapse after infection by the smallpox has taken place, before the fever comes on, and the smallpox breaks out upon the skin
What has nature been doing, during that space of time, with
the contagious miasm which was introduced from without?
Was it not necessary that the disease should be first communicated to the whole organism, before nature became capable of



52


Among many other acute miasms, I may mention the
infection of the human skin by the miasm of the epizootic carbuncle. As soon as the infection has taken place,
ablutions are of no avail; the black blister, which is almost always fatal, and which generally appears upon the
spot where the infection has taken place, comes out in
about four or five days after this terrible disease has
pervaded the whole organism.
This same rule obtains relatively to the half-acute
miasms without eruptions. Thanks to the kind Ruler of
the world, only a few of those who are bit by mad dogs,
are infected-scarcely one in twelve; often only, to my
knowledge, one in thirty; the rest, were they ever so
much torn by a mad dog, generally recover with or
without treatinent."  Wherever the poison acts, the infection takes place at the moment when the bite occurs,
by affecting at once the wlole nervous system. In a
few days, and often a few weeks, during which the internal disease becomes developed, the rage breaks out as
an acute and quickly fatal disease. We know from experience that,whenever the poison has caught, the infection takes place at the moment when the bite occurs;
for neither instantaneous exsection,t nor amputation of
enkindling the fever, and bringing the eruption out upon the
skin 1
The measles also require ten or twelve days after the infection
has taken place, before the eruption comes out upon the skin,
Sind fever sets in. The infection by the virus of scarlatina generally requires seven days before the fever and redness appear.
What has nature been doing all this time with the miasm
What else except to communicate the disease to the whole organism, which communication mustfirst take place before the fever and eruption can appear I
* These statements we owe especially to the experience of
English and American physicians, to Hunter and Houlston; (in the
London Med. Journ. Vol. V.;) also to Vaughan, Shadwell, Percival, whose observations may be found recorded in James
Mease's treatise " On Hydrophobia," Philadel., 1793.
] A girl of 8 years. in the city of Glasgow, was bit by a mad
dog on the 21st of March, 1792. The wound was immediately
exsccted with great care, the suppuration was kept up, togethe'
with ptyalism, for two weeks. Nevertheless hydrophobia broke



53


the bitten part, are capable of preventing the development of the disease in the internal organism; hydrophobia will occur in spite of the many boasted external
applications for the purification, cauterization and suppuration of the wound.
From the course which these miasmatic diseases pursue, we clearly see that, after infection, the internal disease, whether measles, scarlatina, or small-pox, must
first have become fully developed in the organism, before those eruptions can come out upon the skin.
Against all these acute miasmatic diseases, nature
adopts a mode of cure which is inexplicable to us.
They run through their course of about two or three
weeks, when a crisis ensues, by means of which the fever, together with the eruption, are annihilated in the
system. After this period man eitler dies of those diseases, or else recovers."
The mode of contagion wlich nature follows in the
chronic miasmatic diseases, and the formation of the
internal disease previous to the external symptoms appearing upon the skin and indicating the completion of
the internal malady, is the same as in the acute forms of
the disease; but after the internal disease is completed,
out on the 27th of April, and on the 29th the patient died. See
Duncan's Med. Com. Dec. II. Vol. 8., Edinb. 1793, and the new
London Med. Jour. II.
* Have those acute, semivital miasms the peculiar nature of
becoming extinct in the organism, after having affected the vital
powers, at the moment of the infection, each in its peculiar
manner, and having spread through the system like a parasitical
growth, establishing each its peculiar fever, and leaving upon
the skin an eruption which is, in its turn, capable of communicating the disease?
Are not the chronic miasms, on the contrary, continued by the
peculiar contagious eruption which they leave behind, itch vesicle, chancre, cauliflower excrescence, whereas the acute miasms
become extinct of themselves? The chronic rniasms are smrnivital morbid miasms of a parasitical nature, which can only bo
neutralized and annihilated by a more powerful remedy producing analogous effects, (the antisporis;) it is by meanls of theso
alone that the patient can be freed from the eiTcets of thtose mtiasms.



54


Sthere is this remarkable difference between it and the
acute diseases, that the chronic miasm continues in the
organism, and even develops itself from year to year,
unless it is extinguished and thoroughly cured by art.
To show this more fully, I shall here only mention
those two chronic miasms which are best known, the
chancre and the. itch.
The infection most probably takes place, during the
act of coition, at those places which come in contact
with the syphilitic virus and receive it into themselves
by friction.
If the poison has taken effect, the whole system is at
once tainted with it. Immediately after the infection has
taken place, the formation of the internal disease begins.
Those parts of the genital organs, where the infection
has taken place, exhibit nothing unnatural, nothing
morbid, no traces either of inflammation or corrosion;
all zoashing of the parts immediately after an impure
coition is useless.  According to all appearances the
parts remain healthy; only the internal organism is
roused by means of the infection, (which generally. takes
place in a moment.) The internal organism endeavours to assimilate the syphilitic miasm, and becomes
thoroughly tainted with the syphilitic disease.
This complete adaptation of its organs to the syphilitic
virus is the first object of the human organism, after
the infection has taken place. Not till the internal disease is completely developed, does nature try to alleviate and to hush her sufferings by forming at the spot
where the infection has taken place, a local symptom
as a substitute for the internal disease in the shape of a
little blister, which is transformed to a painful ulcer, called bubo or chancre, about five, seven or fourteen days,
or sometimes even three, four, and five weeks after the
infection has taken place. This vicarious chancre has
the power of communicating to other persons the same
miasm, which is the internal disease.
If the internal disease is extinguished by means of
the internal remedy, the chancre becomes also cured, and
man recovers.



55 '


But if the chancre be removed by some local application,* as is done yet to this day by physicians of the
old school, the miasmatic chronic venereal disease remains in the organism, and unless it be cured by internal remedies, it gets worse to the end of life'; nor is the
strongest constitution, by its own unaided yfforts, capable
of eradicating the virus.
The chancre is most easily and thoroughly cured by
curing the internal disease which pervades the whole
system.   I have taught and practised this for years.
The best mode is to employ the internal remedy alone,
without any external application. The merely local
removal of the chancre, without any previous cure of the
internal disease, is invariably followed by the breaking
out of the syphilitic disease, with all its sufferings.
Psora is, like syphilis, a miasmatic chronic disease,
and resembles it in regard to the first development.
Psora is the most contagious of all chronic miasms,
and much more so than syphilis or sycosis. The infection by the latter two miasms can only take place
with readiness in wounds, and at those parts of the body
which are covered with a very thin cuticle and provided
with a delicate nervous tissue; such parts are the genital organs. Moreover a certain degree of friction is
required to introduce the virus into the system. The
psoric miasm, on the contrary, taints the system, especially that of children, by simply touching the skin.
* Syphilis does not only break out through the removal of the
chancre by cauteries-which is called by quacks, repelling the
virus into the system, as though the system had been sound before the so-called repulsion had taken place;-even the sudden
removal of the chancre without any stimulants, brings on syphilis, which may incidentally teach us that the syphilis must have
existed in the system before the appearance of the chancre.
" Petit cut off a small portion of the labia minora which had
been affected with chancre for some days; the wound healed,
but syphilis broke out nevertheless."  See Fabre, Lettres,
Supplement a son traite des Maladies Vcncriennes. Paris,
1786.-How could this be otherwise, since the syphilitic disease pervaded the whole system even before the chancre had
made its appearance!



57


The nerve in which the psoric miasm had first taken
effect, had already communicated it to the remaining
nerves by an invisible dynamic sympathy, and the living
organism became so much disturbed by this specific influence, that it was forced to adapt itself to the action of
this psoric miasm, until, by virtue of this universal adaptation, the internal disease had become completely and
finally established.
Not till the whole organism has been adapted to the
nature of the chronic miasmatic disease, do the morbidly affected vital powers endeavour to alleviate and to
calm the internal disease by a local symptom, (the itch
vesicle, for instance.) As long as this eruption continues upon the skin in its natural form, the internal
psora, together with its secondary ailments, remain slumbering, latent and restrained.
The perfect adaptation of the whole organism to the
nature of the psoric virus usually requires a period of
six, seven, ten, sometimes even fourteen days. After
this period, towards evening, the patient experiences a
more or less considerable chill, and, during the subsequent night, heat all over the body; terminating in
sweat. This heat is often supposed to be a little fever,
which is believed to come from a cold, and is not regarded.* Then the eruption makes its appearance,
first near the spot which has been the original seat of
the infection, in the shape of fine vesicles, resembling
rash, and increasing in size. They are distinguished
by a voluptuously and almost intolerably delightful
itching. This incessantly invites the patient to rub and
to scratch the vesicles, and, if the itching is suffered to
continue without scratching, there is a shuddering experienced over the whole skin. Rubbing and scratching
may ease the patient for a moment, but it is immediately
* So far from being a separable local affection, the vesicles
are on the contrary evident proofs of the psora having been completely developed in the system; the eruption is merely the ultimate boundary of the psoric development. This eruption,
together with the itching, are a part of the whole disease in its
natural, least dangerous form.



59


While the-disease is in this condition, it is most easily
cured by the specific remedies taken internally.
If the disease is permitted to develop itself according
to its nature,without using an internally curative remedy,
or some external application against the eruption,* the
internal disease increases rapidly. This increase of the
internal disease inducing a corresponding increase of
the external symptoms, the eruption will finally cover
the whole surface of the body, in order to calm the internal disease, and keep it in a latent condition.
Even at this stage of the disease man apparently enjoys good health, except the eruption. The external
symptom keeping pace with the internal disease, keeps
this one at bay. But the itching over the whole body
becomes so intolerable, that even the robustest man
cannot bear it in the end. He wishes to get rid of his
torment at any price; and, for want of sound help, he
contents himself with being freed from the eruption,
even though it cost him his life.   Unfortunately the
a chancre for two years. The chancre had constantly remained
at the same place, and had now reached the size of an inch in
diameter. Nothing had been done for it. There was no trace
of secondary syphilis in this patient. The best preparation of
mercury taken internally, cured both the internal disease and
the chancre.
* NOTE OF THE TRANSLATOR.-This is not to be understood
as if Hahnemann approved of the application of external remedies. The idea which Hahnemann means to cnvey is this,
that the internal disease may be apparently checked in its course
by external applications; in reality the internal disease is not
checked; it is surprised, or stunned, as it were, by the external
application, but not cured, not even checked by it; for, from the
moment that its external symptom, in which the disease has embodied itself, is suppressed, the morbific virus concentrates itself,
gathers its forces, and constructs its mines, by means of which
it prepares the ultimate and unavoidable destruction of the organism. This gathering of the morbific virus and instilling itself
into the inmost recesses of the animal economy, is necessarily
the work of time, and often takes place so slowly and gradually
that the patient is induced to believe that the suppression of the
external vicarious embodiment of the internal disease was tantamount to a radical cure.



60


means are at once furnished him either by ignorant laymen or by alloeopathic physicians and surgeons. All
he cares for is to get rid of the external pain, without
thinking of the evil consequences that attend the suppression of the vicarious external disease. By resorting
to this suppression, he fares like the poor man who
means to get rid of his poverty by stealing a large sum
of money,. and, instead of obtaining wealth, goes to
dungeon or the gallows.
The longer the psoric disease has lasted, no matter
whether the eruption has spread all over the skin, or
whether it has been confined to a few vesicles, owing to
a peculiar want of action in the skin,* in both these cases
the suppression of even the smallest eruption is attended with the most pernicious consequences; for the internal psora which has been increasing all the time, now
breaks forth with its host of terrible sufferings.
The badly informed layman may be pardoned for suppressing the troublesome itching and the eruption, by
cold shower baths, rolling in the snow, cupping, or rubbing the skin or only the joints with sulphur ointment;
he knows not what dangerous symptoms of the internal
psora he calls up in his system. But who can pardon
men whose duty it is to know, and by proper treatment,t
* See above, the observation in case 86.
t For, even at this stage of the disease, the eruption, together
with the internal psora, may yet he cured more easily, and with
more certainty, though less so than at the beginning of the disease, by the proper homceopathic remedies, than is possible after
the external suppression of the eruption; for this external suppression is always succeeded by a host of nameless chronic diseases, into which the external psora develops itself. Before the
suppression, the psoric disease forms yet a unit, and may, therefore, be met more easily, with infinitely more certainty and more
thoroughly by the appropriate specific remedies, than after the suppression of the cutaneous symptoms. External remedies are no
more required in this disease than in the venereal affection,
where one small dose of the best mercurial preparation is often
sufficient to convert the chancre into a benign ulcer. The ulcer
heals in a few days of itself, and no secondary symptoms of
syphilis ever appear, because the internal disease has been cured,
together with the local affection. This is a doctrine which 1



62


hend any further trouble." Who can pardon them for
not profiting by the many thousand warning examples
which they find recorded in the works of older, conscientious observers, or which the experience of modern physicians reveals to them?  Ought not they to know that, by
suppressing the eruption, they bring upon the patient
either certain death, or a lingering disease, which lasts to
the end of his life?  Do they not let loose the psoric disease upon the deluded patient by tearing down the only
barriers which kept the thousand-headed monster in
bounds?
It may easily be imagined, and experience teaches,
that the internal psora will finally reach its greatest development, if the eruption is permitted to remain upon
the skin. The intensity of the internal disease becomes
manifest by the evil consequences with which the suppression of an old eruption is constantly attended.
On the other hand, it is certain that the suppression
of a few recently formed itch vesicles, when the internal psora had not time to develop its intensity, is attended
with less immediate danger; and that there are no immediate evil consequences attending such a suppression. Hence it often happens that the children of rich
parents are freed, in a day or two, from a few recently
Not only medical scribblers, but even the greatest and most
celebrated physicians of modern times, have made themselves
guilty of this gross error, (or shall I say, wilful crime?) from
von Helmont down to the latest advocates of the allkeopathic
practice.
The above quoted remedies were indeed sufficient to remove
both the eruption and the itching. In their delusion the physicians supposed to have destroyed the disease, and dismissed
their patients with the assurance that they had entirely recovered.
The ailments which succeeded the suppression of the eruption,
they explained as new maladies. They were heedless of those
innumerable, striking testimonies of older and honest observers,
which show that the consequences often follow the suppression
so rapidly that every body in his senses must acknowledge them
as results of an internal psora, which, being deprived of its primary cutaneous symptoms, was forced to embody itself in a host
of secondary diseases.



63


formed vesicles by means of lead ointment or lead
washes, without any one suspecting-them of having been
infected with the itch.
But, however trifling the ailments may be with which
the suppression of a few recently formed vesicles is
attended, and which the ignorant family physician attributes to other slight causes, nevertheless, the internal psora, be it ever so little developed, affects the
whole organism; the robustest constitution is incapable of annihilating it by its own unaided efforts, and
unless it be extinguished by the aid of art, it will last
to the end of life. It is indeed true that the first development of this internal disease is slower, when the
eruption upon the skin is removed as speedily as it
shows itself, than in cases where the eruption has been
upon the skin for a long time, and the internal psora
has been permitted to increase in intensity in a corresponding degree. Nevertheless, even in the most favourable cases, the development of the internal psora goes
on for years, often so slowly and imperceptibly that persons who are not perfectly acquainted with the symptoms, by which the existence of this slumbering enemy
shows itself, would suppose the patient to be perfectly
healthy.
Numerous observations* have, by degrees, made me
acquainted with the symptoms by which the internal
disease manifests itself, even in its incipient state of
slumber.t By means of this knowledge I am able to
* Up to this moment, at the age of 79 years, I have never
been infected with the itch, although I am extremely susceptible
of being attacked by acute or epidemic diseases, and have undergone excessive mental exertions and moral sufferings. This
may have been the reason why I should have had a better chance
than hundreds of others to discover and to appreciate the symptoms of psora, whether in the latent condition, or existing in
the form of great chronic ailments. I had the means and was
in the habit of comparing those symptoms with the state of
health that I have constantly enjoyed.
o The allceopathic physicians have likewise supposed latent forms
disease, in order to have a pretence for the inroads which they



65


The hands are generally cold, and the palm of the
hand is sweaty, (burning in the palm of the hand.)
The feet are cold and dry, or sweaty and badly smelling. (Burning upon the soles of the feet.)
The arms or hands, legs or feet become benumbed
by a slight cause.
Frequent cramps in the muscles of the arms and
hands.
Painless subsultus of parts of muscles, here and there.
Frequent or tedious coryza, or dry cold in the head,"
or impossibility of catching cold, even though the person is much exposed to the causes of cold, and has been
constantly affected with it formerly.
Tedious obstruction of the nares, one or both.
Ulcers in the nares, (sore nose.)
Disagreeable sensation of dryness in the nose.
Frequent inflammation of the throat, frequent hoarseness.
Short and light coughing, early in the morning, in
quick repetition.
Frequent attacks of the asthma.
Either the whole body or only the head, neck, breast,
abdomen, feet, easily catch cold, especially in a draught
of air;t these parts are then generally covered with
sweat; the cold is attended with various symptoms,
which often last a good while.
Straining, which often occurs from the slightest cause,
from carrying or lifting a light weight, from elevating
and stretching the arms after high objects; this moderate stretching of the muscles is often succeeded by all
sorts of ailments, headache, nausea, sinking of strength,
painful tension in the muscles of the back of the neck,
or tile back, etc.
Frequent pain on one side of the head, or toothache,
from even moderate mental emotions.
* The catarrhal fevers, (for example, influenza,) which affect
even the soundest constitution, do not come under this remark.
t Persons whose organisms are not tainted with the psoric
virus, do not catch cold from being exposed to a draught, or
damp and cold air, though they may find it disagreeable.



67


Chilblains; they are painful even in the summer season.
The corns pain, even when the shoes do not pinch.
This or that joint is easily strained, in stepping or
seizing.
One or more joints crack during motion.
Drawing, straining pains in the back of the neck, in the
back, the limbs, especially the teeth, (in damp, stormy
weather, when the wind is from the north-west or northeast,* after a cold, a strain consequent on lifting, or after
disagreeable emotions, etc.
The pains manifest themselves again during rest,
they disappear during motion.
The pains generally come on during night; they
appear again and increase, when the barometer has fallen,
when the wind is from the north or north-east, in the
winter season and towards spring.
Uneasy, frightful, or too vivid dreams.
Unhealthy skin; every little wound ulcerates; the skin
of the hands and the lower lips becomes easily chopped.
Frequent boils, frequent paronychias.
Dry skin upon the extremities, upper arms, thighs,
also upon the cheeks.
Here and there scaly places upon the skin, causing a
voluptuously delightful sort of itching, and a burning
after the place has been scratched.
Here and there a vesicle characterized by an intolerable but voluptuously delightful itching. At the top it
is filled with pus, and there is a burning after it has been
scratched; it is often found upon a finger, on the wrist,
or elsewhere.
Though frequently affected with some of these ailments, man may yet deem himself healthy, and is often
considered so by others. These affections do not
prevent him from leading a tolerably comfortable existence, provided he is young and robust, is not obliged
to fatigue himself, has all his.wants provided for, is not
exposed to chagrin or grief, and has a cheerful, calm,
patient and contented temper. In this case, the internal
* The north-easters in Europe are dry and cutting.



68


psora may continue slumbering in the organism foryears,
without being observed by any other except the attentive
connoisseur, or without "becoming developed into a permanent chronic disease.
However, in persons that are affected with those apparently slight infirmities, a trivial cause, an ordinary
vexation, a cold, an irregularity in the diet, etc., may, in
a more advanced age, cause a violent though short attack
of disease, a violent colic, inflammation of the chest or
throat, erysipelas,' fever, and similar diseases, the vehemence of which often is out of proportion with the
moderately exciting cause. Such diseases generally
show themselves during the fall or winter season, but
often also in spring more than at any other period..It.sometimes happens that the patient who is affected
with the latent psora, whether he be a child or a fullgrown man, seems to enjoy good health, but passes into
circumstances which are the very opposite of t-hose that
I have described above; his organism may have been
very much weakened and disturbed by some ruling epidemic fever,* by a contagious, acute disease, small-pox,
measles, hooping-cough, scarlatina, purple-rash, etc.,
or by some severe injury, by a shock, a fall, a wound,
a large burn, by fracturing a leg or an arm, by a hard
labour, by the confinement consequent upon disease,
and by the allceopathic remedies which have been improperly given to the patient; or the vital powers may
have been weakened by leading a sedentary life in a close
damp room; the soul may have been depressed by the
death of beloved relatives, or the patient's life may have
been embittered by daily chagrin and grief; or he may
have become exposed to want, he may have become deprived of the needful, and his strength and his fortitude
* Acute fevers often terminate in causing a latent psora, which
has become roused by the acute disease, to break out upon the
skin in the form of itch. The physicians who were ignorant of
the existence of a latent psora, declare this eruption to be a new
itch bred by the bad humours with which the system of the
patient is said to be filled. But the itch can, no more than the
small-pox, measles or chancre, 'enerate itself spontaneously; it
can only show itself upon the skin after infection has taleon place.



69


may have failed him in consequence of bad nourishment:
in that case the latent psora becomes roused and develops that host of inveterate symptoms which will be
found enumerated below; some one of the psoric chronic
diseases breaks forth* and increases to a fearful height,
especially by the improper treatment of alloeopathic
* This kind of disease depends upon the original constitution
of the patient, his peculiar mode of life, his character, the influences of education, or upon the weaker parts of the organism attractipg the psoric miasms by their higher adaptation to its nature,
and causing it to form the diseases which are inherent in the
peculiar vital activity of the affected organs. The eruption of
the psoric disease is especially favoured by an irritable, vehement
temper, by the exhaustion consequent upon frequent pregnancy, excessive nursing of children, great bodily exertions, improper, unsuccessful treatment, excesses at table and dissolute
habits. Owing to its peculiar nature, the psoric disease may remain latent under favourable circumstances. In this case the
patient appears to enjoy good health, until unfavourable circumstances set in, which rouse the internal disease and cause it to
break out. Neither the relatives, nor the patient, or the physician
himself can comprehend how it is possible that his health should
have declined in this why so suddenly. The diseases which
then break out, often even after a trivial occurrence, such as
being confined to the bed for five or six weeks in consequence of
a fracture of the leg-as I have witnessed in my own practicecannot be traced to any cause; they return in spite of a first
successful treatment and of the strictest diet; they increase each
time they appear again in the system, especially in the fall,
winter or spring, and finally settle down in the form of a
lingering malady, against which the mineral baths are of no
avail, and which cannot be treated according to the rules of the
allceopathic practice, without exposing the patient to the danger
of having a more severe disease substituted in the place of his
former ailment. There are innumerable causes which may rouse
the internal psora and cause it to develop its manifold germs; the
evil effects of those causes often bear no sort of apparent relation
to them, which makes it impossible for a sensible man to consider them the true exciting causes of the secondary psoric
disease, the often fearful character of which ought, on the contrary, to be explained by the existence of a deep-seated latent
disturbance, which has broke out on this occasion, and is tho
common mother of all such chronic secondary affections.
Let us suppose, for example, the case of a young woman who
has been infected with psora in her childhood, but who, according to appearance, enjoys good health, or what is commonly so
3*



70


physicians, unless more favourable circumstances set in,
diminishing the intensity of the disease, and making
its ulterior development more moderate.
called. In the third month of her pregnancy, she has the misfortune of being upset in her carriage. The consequence of this
accident, beside a slight external injury-and fright, is miscarriage,
accompanied with considerable hemorrhage, which exhausts her
strength. In a few weeks she has almost recovered her former
strength and health, when the news of a dangerous illness of her
beloved and absent sister puts her back in her recovery, and adds
to her former disease a multitude of nervous complaints and
spasms, which make her really sick. In a little while she receives better news of her sister; at last the sister, perfectly
cured, pays her a visit. But the young woman remains sick in
spite of these agreeable influences; and, though she may appear
to do better for eight days or a fortnight, nevertheless, her ailments return without any visible cause. Every subsequent labour,
be it ever so easy, every stormy winter, adds new complaints to
the former, or these appear to have yielded their place to other
more inconvenient affections. In this way the patient becomes
affected with an important chronic disease, and it is impossible
for us to comprehend why the full vigour of youth, existing
moreover under favourable external circumstances, should not
have succeeded in soon extinguishing the consequences of that
miscarriage; still less do we comprehend why the evil effects of
that sad news should not have become dissipated by the news of
the sister's restoration to health, or, at any rate, by the presence
of the sister.
If it be true that the cause is constantly proportionate to its
effects, as is always the case in nature, it is difficult to understand how, in the case of this young woman, the subsequent ailments should not have disappeared as soon. as the cause had
ceased to act. The continuance of these ailments shows that
they must have originated in a much more deep-seated cause,
which remained latent in the system until the above mentioned
contrary events (the miscarriage and the disagreeable news) had
excited it< action, and had roused it into a development hostile to
the organism.
A merchant who seems to enjoy good health, with the exception of a few vestiges of psora, which are only known to the
connoisseur, often loses his health in consequence of great losses
which reduce him to the brink of bankruptcy. We will suppose
such a case, and we will also suppose that the health of this
merchant declines more and more. However, his losses are
amply repaired by the death of a rich relative, or the gain of a
high prize in the lottery. But in spite of this favourable turn of
his afairs, his health continues to decline from year to year, nor
can prescriptions, or the most celebrated mineral baths do any



71


But suppose that the rapid development of the disease should have been moderated, it cannot, however,
be permanently cured, by the various fashionable remedies in use, such as baths, mercury, prussic acid, iodine,
digitalis, china, starvation; they merely accelerate the
thing to restore it; on the contrary, they make, perhaps, the evil
worse.
A girl of good character, who, with the exception of a few
symptoms of internal psora, enjoys good health, is forced to marry
against her inclination. She feels wretched; her health declines,
although there is no trace of venereal disease. Her sufferings
are increasing without being relieved by the medicines which
allaopathic physicians give her. After she has suffered for a
year, her husband is taken from her by death. She now seems to
revive in the conviction of being soon freed from all bodily and
mental suffering; she even hopes soon to have recovered perfect
health; for the cause of her disease has ceased to exist. She
improves, indeed, but she remains sickly; and, despite of the
vigour of her youth, she is frequently attacked with illness, which
seems even to increase from year to year, without any apparent
cause, especially in the rough season.
An unjustly suspected person, who has become entangled in a
criminal suit, has become affected with various ailments during the time of the proceedings; before the suit commenced
she seemed to enjoy good health, with the exception of a few
symptoms of internal psora. Her innocence is at last acknowledged, and she is honourably acquitted. One should say that
this happy event must infuse new life into her and free her from
all her bodily sufferings. But this is not the case; on the contrary, at times her disease returns, and it seems even to increase
from year to year, especially in the winter season.
If the disagreeable event had been the sole and sufficient cause
of all these sufferings, does it not seem natural to conclude, that
the cessation of the cause ought to be succeeded by a cessation
of its effects? But the ailments do not cease; on the contrary,
they are renewed from time to time in an increasing degree, which
makes it manifest that the disagreeable event which we have
supposed above, is not the real cause of the sufferings, but that
it has merely roused into action a more deep-seated and much
more formidable principle of disease, which was hitherto latent
in the system.
Science has now revealed to us the nature of this internal enemy, and the means to conquer him; we know now that it is a
deep-seated psora slumbering in the inmost recesses of the organism, and which the robustest constitution would have been insufficient to expel, unless aided by the efforts of art,



73


Vertigo; on turning briskly he almost falls over,
Vertigo, attacking him with a jerk in the head; he
loses his senses for a moment.
Vertigo, accompanied with frequent eructations.
Vertigo, on looking down upon the floor, or on looking up.
Vertigo, in walking along a road in a plain, which is
not enclosed on either side.
Vertigo; she appears to herself either too large or too
small; other objects, likewise, appear either too large or
too sinall.
Vertigo, resembling a swoon.
Vertigo, causing a loss of consciousness.
Numbness and giddiness of the head; the patient can
neither think, nor accomplish any mental labour.
She cannot control her thoughts.
At times she seems to be deprived of thought; she
sits there as if she were absent.
The head feels benumbed and drowsy in the open air.
Sometimes he sees everything dim or black on walking or stooping, or raising the head from stooping.
Rush of blood to the head.'
Heat in the head, and in the face.'
Feeling of cold pressure on the head."
Dull headache in the morning, on waking up, or
in the afternoon, either on walking fast or speaking
loud.
Headache on one side, at certain periods, (after twenty-eight, fourteen, or a less number of days;). more frequently about the period when there is either full or new
moon; or after vivid emotions, colds, etc., pressure or
other pain on the top of the head or in the head, or a
boring pain above one eye.'
(1) During which he is attacked with sadness, with anxiety
and dread of labour.
(2) The hands and feet are often cold.
(3) Ordinarily accompanied with anxiety.
4) At the same time often a great inward uneasiness. Anx



74


Headache, daily, at certain hours; for example, shooting pains in the temples.1
Attacks of pulsating headache, (for example, in the
forehead,) with nausea, which threatens to make him fall
to the ground, or vomiting from morning till evening,
every fortnight; sometimes before, sometimes after this
period.
Headache as if the skull would tear open.
Drawing pain in the head."
Headache, twinges in the head, (coming out by the
ears.)3
Headache, shooting pains in the head coming out by
the ears.4 Din in the brain, singing, humming, noise,
thunder, etc. The hairy scalp is covered with scales,
with or without itching.
Eruptions on the head, scald, malignant scabs, (the
crust being more or less thick,) with shooting pain when
a liquid is oozing out; intolerable itching during the
wet stage; the whole top of the head painfully affected
iety, especially in the abdomen, want of stools, or frequent,
scanty, painful stools, weight in the limbs, tremblings in the
whole body; tension of all the nerves, with great irritability
and sensitiveness; the eye cannot bear any light; it is flowing, swells up; the feet are cold; sometimes the head is stopped up with a cold; chills, sometimes flushes of heat; continual nausea, also retching and vomiting; she is lying there either
as if she were stunned, or throws herself about as if full of anguish; the attacks last twelve, twenty-four and more hours. After
the attack, there is either great prostration, with sadness, or a feeling of tension in the wholp body; before the attack, she frequently
experiences twitches in the limbs during sleep; she starts in
sleep; has painful dreams; grating of the teeth in sleep, and
tendency to start at sudden noises.
(1) They sometimes swell up, with tears in one eye.
(2) In some cases a drawing pain, coming from the back of
the neck, and going to the back part of the head, or extending
over the whole head and face, which frequently swells up from
the pain; the head is painful to the touch; frequently there is
nausea.
(3) Usually in walking, especially in walking and taking exercise after eating.
(4) They often see everything black.



75


by the open air; at the same time hard glandular swellings on the back part of the neck.
Hair feels as if it were dried; hair falling out abundantly, especially on the forepart and on the top of the
head, or in the centre of the crown, or baldness of
some places.
Painful tubercles on the skin of the head, coming and
going, like boils; round tumours.
Sensation of constriction in the skin of the head and
face.
Paleness of the face in the first sleep, with a blue
circle round the eyes.
Frequent redness and heat of the face.2
Yellowish colour, yellowness of the face.
Gray, yellow colour of the face.
Erysipelas on the face.3
Aching pain above the eyes, especially late in the
evening; he is obliged to close them.
He cannot look at anything long without everything
appearing to flicker.
Objects appear to move.
The eyelids, especially in the morning, feel as if
they were shut, (for minutes, sometimes even for howrs;)
he cannot open them; the eyelids are heavy, as if paralyzed or drawn together spasmodically.
Eyes extremely sensible to the daylight; it makes
them smart, and they shut involuntarily.'
Sensation of cold in the eyes.
Corners of the eyes full of purulent mucus, (gum.)
Edges of the eyelids covered with dry scurf.
The meibomian glands round the edges of one of the
eyelids are inflamed, either one or more, (stye.)
(1) In rare cases they terminate in suppuration.
(2) He becomes very feeble, he feels exhausted or full of
anxiety, and sweats all over the upper part of his body: sornetimes the eyes become dim, they see black, he is sad, the head
seems to be too full, with burning in the temples.
(3) In some cases there is much fever, sometimes also burning, itching, watery pustules with a shooting pain, in the face,
which turn into scabs; (pustulous erysipelas.)
(4) Usually with more or less inflammation.



76


Inflammation of the eyes, of various kinds.'
Yellowness of the white of the eyes.2
Yellowness round the eyes.
Dark opaque spots on the cornea.8
Dropsy of the eye.
Obscuration of the crystalline lens; cataract; squinting.
Longsightedness. He sees at a distance, but cannot
distinguish clearly small objects which are held near.
Nearsightedness. He can see distinctly even very
small objects, when he holds them near; but the
farther the object the less distinctly does he see it; and
at a distance, not at all.
False sight. He sees objects double, or multiplied,
or he sees only one-half of an object.
Musce volitantes, black points,dark stripes, or a network move before his eyes, especially on looking into
the bright daylight.
Objects are seen as if through a gauze or a cloud, the
sight is dim at certain periods.
Blindness by night. He sees very well in the day,
but nothing during twilight.
Blindness by day. He sees well only in the twilight.
Gutta serena, uninterrupted dimness of the sight,'
which finally increases to blindness.
Painful sensibility of several parts of the face, the
cheeks, the cheek bones, the lower jaw, etc., either on
touching those parts, or in speaking, or chewing; there
is a sensation of subcutaneous festering, or of stinging
and lancinating; in chewing* especially there is twitch(1) Fistula lachrymalis has probably no other origin than
psora.
(2) Or gray colour of the lens.
(3) Even without having previously had an inflammation of
the eyes.
(I) More frequently without an obscuration of the crystalline
lens than with it.
(5) In chewing or speaking there is a similar twitching motion on the sides of his head; at these places protuberances,
painful boils, etc, are often formed. If the pain is insupporta



77


ing, shooting and straining in the muscles, which prevents him from eating.
Hearing is excessiyely irritable and sensitive; she
cannot hear the sound of a bell without tremor; -the
noise of a drum  throws her into convulsions, and the
ear is painfully affected by various sounds.
He has shooting pains coming out by the-ear.'
Crawling and itching in the ear.'
Dryness, dry scitrf in the ears, without wax.
Running, from the ear, of a thin, usually fetid pus.
Pulsating sensation in the ear.
Noise and different sounds in the ear."
Want of hearing in different degrees, even to complete deafness, with or without noise, varying according
to the weather.
Swelling of the parotid glands.3
Bleeding from the nose more or less abundantly and
frequently.
Nostrils as if stopped up.4
Troublesome sensation of dryness in the nose, even
when the ait passes freely.
Polypi of the nose, (usually with loss of smell,) which
often extend through the meatus down the throat.
Smell either weak or lost.
Perversion of smell.6
Smell too strong, high and highest sensitiveness, even
to the weakest odours.
ble and accompanied with a burning heat, it is called Fothergill's pain in the face.
(1) Especially while walking in the open air.
*(2) Such as singing, rustling, whizzing, snorting, buzzing,
chirping, ringing, drumming, thundering, fluttering, flapping,
murmuring, etc.
(3) Often with shooting pains in the glands.
(4) Either one or both of them at once, or alternately the one
or the other; often there is only a feeling of being stopped up,
though the air passes through with ease.
(5) For example, a smell of manure, or some other peculiar
smell in the nose.



78


Scurf in the nose, running of pus, or hardened clots
of mucus.'
Fetid smell in the nose.
Nostrils frequently ulcerating, surrounded with pimples and scurf.
Swelling and redness of the nose, or of the tip of the
nose, either frequently or permanently.
Under the nose or on the upper lip, long continued
scurf, or itching pimples.
The vermilion border of the lips quite pale.
The vermilion border of the lips is dry, scurfy, scaly,
it cracks.
Swelling of the lips, especially the iupper one.2
The inside of the lips is set with little ulcers or pustules.3
Cutaneous eruptions, where the skin is covered with
the beard, or at the roots of the beard-hair, with itching.
Innumerable kinds of eruption on the face.4
Glands of the lower jaw swollen, or passing into a
state of chronic suppuration.
Glandular swellings down the sides of the neck.
Gums bleeding on the slightest touch.
The inside or outside of the gums feels sore.
Gnawing itching at the gums.
Gums whitish, swollen, painful to the touch.
Gums disappear, leaving the front teeth bare, even
their roots.
Grating of the teeth during sleep.
Looseness or decay of the teeth, of various kinds,
even without toothache.
Toothache of countless kinds, from many sorts of exciting causes.
Cannot remain in bed from the toothache.
(1) Sometimes also with running of an acrid mucus from the
nose.
(2) Sometimes with a burning, biting pain.
(3) Often very painful, coming and going.
(4) Crusta lactea, pimples, herpes, carcinomatous ulcers on
the nose, lips and face, with burning and shooting pain.



80
Bad smell from the mouth, sometimes mouldy, some
times putrid, like the smell of old cheese, or of feticd
sweaty feet, or rotten sourcrout.
Risings from the stomach, empty, loud risings of air
merely, incontrollable, lasting often for whole hours, and
frequently in the night.
Checked risings from the stomach, which occasion
spasmodic straining in the cesophagus, without coming
out at the mouth.
Sour risings, either fasting, or after a meal, especially
after having tasted milk.
Risings which excite vomiting.
Risings, rancid, especially after having eaten any
thing greasy.
Risings, putrid or mouldy, early in the morning.
Frequent risings before eating, with a sort of rabid
hunger.
Heartburn, more or less frequent; there is a burning
all along the chest, especially after breakfast, or on
moving the body.
Flowing of a sort of salivary fluid from the stomach,
preceded by writhing pains about the stomach (the
pancreas,) with weakness in the pit of the stomach; a
fainting sort of nausea, and conflux of saliva in the mouth,
even during the night;' (water-brash.)
The complaints which are prevalent in any part of
the body, are excited by the use of fresh fruits, especially of acid fruits, and of vinegar, (eating salad, etc.)
Nausea, early in the morning.2
Nausea, even to vomiting, early in the morning, after rising from the bed; it is lessened by motion.
Nausea, always after having eaten greasy things or
milk.
Vomiting of blood.
Hiccough after eating or drinking.
(1) It also degenerates into vomiting of water, mucus, or
acid, acrid substances, especially after having eaten flour dumplings, flatuous vegetables, stewed prunes, etc.
(2) Often arising very suddenly.



82


Pain at the stomach; the stomach feels sore, even
on eating the most harmless food.
Oppression at the stomach, even before breakfast, but
especially after eating any kind of food, or particular
kinds, such as frgit, green vegetables, black bread, food
prepared with vinegar, etc.'
While eating, he is attacked with giddiness, threatens to fall to one side.
After the slightest supper, he is affected with heat in the
bed, (constipation and great lassitude early in the morning.)
After a meal, a feeling of anxiety accompanied with
sweat, such as is consequent upon anxiety.9
On eating, sweat breaks out immediately.
Vomiting, immediately after a meal.
After a meal, oppression and burning at the stomach,
or in the epigastrium, almost like hpartburn.
After a meal, a burning sensation in the cesophagus,
from below upwards.
After a meal, distention of the abdomen.3
After a meal, weary and sleepy.4
After a meal, he feels as if he were intoxicated.
After a meal, headache.
After a meal, beating of the heart.
Eating alleviates several, even remote, complaints.
The flatuosities, instead of passing off, become displaced; this causes a multitude of both bodily and mental ailments.'
(1) The slightest quantity of these things produces colic, pain
or numbness in the jaws, tearing pain in the teeth, considerable
accumulation of mucus in the throat, etc.
(2) Pains which reappear at different places, for instance,
shooting pains in the lips, griping and grinding pains in the abdomen; pressure in the chest, heaviness in the back and small
of the back, even to nausea; in this case vomiting, artificially
excited, alleviates the suffering. In some persons the anxiety
consequent upon eating increases to such an extent that they desire to destroy themselves by strangulation.
(3) Sometimes accompanied with lassitude in arms and legs.
(4) The patient is often obliged to lie down and sleep.
(5) Sometimes drawing pains in the limbs, especially the
lower extremities, or stitches in the pit of the stomach, or in the
sides of the abdomen, etc.



83


Flatuosities distend the abdomen; the abdomen
feels full, especially after a meal.
The patient feels as if the flatuosities ascended; these
are then succeeded by eructations, frequent burning in
the throat, or vomiting, by day and by night.
Pain in the hypochondria on being touched, or during
motion, also during rest.
Painful constrictions in the epigastrium, close below
the ribs.
Cutting pains in the abdomen, which seem to originate in displaced flatuosities, (or flatuosities that have
become entangled;) these pains are always accompanied with a sensation of fulness in the abdomen; the
flatuosities seem to rise.
Cutting pains in the abdomen, almost daily, especially in children; more frequently early in the morning
than at any other time of the day; in some cases, day
and night, without diarrhoea.
Cutting pains in the abdomen, especially in the hypogastric or lumbar regions of one side.2
A feeling of desolateness and wild confusion or unpleasant emptiness in the abdomen; even immediately
after a meal he felt as if he had not eaten at all.
After having been constipated for several days, she
experiences a sensation of constriction below the
stomach, as from a band; this sensation comes from the
small of the back and passes round the abdomen.
Pain in the liver on touching the right hypogastric
region.
(1) The flatuosities frequently ascend; sometimes, but less
frequently, an enormous quantity of flatuosities passes off, especially early in the morning; they are without smell and without
alleviating the rest of the complaints; at other times there passes
off a large quantity of uncommonly fetid wind.
(2) The cutting pain sometimes descends all along the rectum and the thigh.
(3) sometimes existing in alternation with painful constrictions of the abdomen.



84


Pain in the liver; pressure and tension; tension below
the ribs of the right side.
Tension and pressure, coming from under the last
ribs (in the hypochondria,) which arrests breathing, and
produces a feeling of anxious care.
Pain in the liver; stitches, especially on stooping suddenly.
Inflammation of the liver.
Pressure in the hypogastric region, as from a stone.'
Hardness of the hypogastrium.
Spasmodic colic, a cramp in the intestines.
During the colic, coldness of one side of the abdomen.
Audible rumbling and grunting in the abdomen.2
Uterine spasms, resembling labour pains; cramp-like
pains in the uterus, obliging the patient to lie down;
they often distend the abdomen in a short time, without producing flatuosities.
Pressure in the abdomen towards the genital organs.3
Inguinal hernias; they become painful through singing and speaking.4
Swelling of the inguinal glands, sometimes termina
ting in suppuration.
Constipation; the stools often delay for several days,
though there is frequently an unsuccessful desire for stool.
The stools are hard, look burnt, come out in little
clots, like the excrements of sheep, sometimes covered
with a slimy substance and even with streaks of blood.
(1) The pressure often rises to the pit of the stomach; it there
causes a sensation of grinding, and excites vomiting.
(2) These symptoms sometimes only exist in the left side of
the abdomen; during an inspiration they rise, during an expiration they descend.
(3) There is a pressure downwards, as if prolapsus were to
come on; when the pressure ceases, she feels heavy in all her
limbs; her limbs fel benumbed; she is obliged to stretch her
arms and her body.
(4) Inguinal hernias generally spring from internal psora;
if we except the few cases where these parts have been injured
by great external violence, or where hernia has been caused
by superhuman bodily efforts, through sudden lifting or pushing
consequent upon anxious surprise.
I



85


Stools composed of mere slime (slimy hemorrhoids.)
Passing of ascarides by the anus.
"Passing of fragments of taenia.
Stools, the first part of which is generally very hard
and passes off with great pain; the latter half is liquid
as in diarrhoea.
Stools very pale, whitish.
Gray stools.
Green stools.
Clay-coloured stools.
Stools smelling fetid and sour.
Cutting in the rectum on passing the stools.
Diarrhoea, lasting for weeks, months and years.1
Diarrhoea frequently returning, lasting for several days
and accompanied with cutting pains in the abdomen.
Great and sudden loss of strength after having passed
the stools, especially when they were rather soft and
abundant.2
Diarrhoea soon weakens her so much that she canno
walk alone.
Varices3 of the rectum, either painless or painful
(blind hemorrhoids.)
Bleeding varices of the rectum,4 especially on passing the stools; afterwards the varices are painful for a
long time (flowing hemorrhoids.)
Hemorrhage from the anus is accompanied with
short breathing and orgasm.
Sensation of crawling and itching in the rectum,
with or without the passing of ascarides.
Itching and gnawing in the rectum and perineum.
Polypi in the rectum.
(1) Generally there is much rumbling from fermentation in the
abdomen, especially early in the morning.
(2 Especially loss of strength in the pit of the stomach, anxiety, uneasiness, sometimes chills over the abdomen, in the small
of the back, etc.
(3) Sometimes a slimy liquid ekes out.
(4) Fistula in ano most probably generally originate in psora,
especially when stimulating diet, an abundance of spirituous
liquors, purgatives, a sedentary mode of life and sexual abuses
pupervene.
4



86


The patient complains of anxiety and loss of strength
during micturition.
Urine sometimes passes off in too large a quantity;
this causes a sudden loss of strength.'
Painful retention of urine (in children and old people.)
When he feels cold (through and through) he is unable
to urinate.
She is sometimes so distended that she is unable to
urinate.
The urethra is constricted in different parts, especially early in the morning.2
Pressure upon the bladder, as if from a desire to urinate, immediately, after drinking.
He is unable to hold his urine, there is a sensation of
pressure upon the bladder; urine passes off while the
patient is walking, sneezing, coughing, laughing.
The patient is frequently obliged to pass his urine in
the night; for that purpose he has to rise frequently.
After urinating, the urine continues to flow in drops'
for a long time.
Urine passes off in great abundance in the shape of a
whitish, sweetish-smelling and sweetish-tasting liquid;
this is accompanied with thinness and an inextinguishable thirst, (diabetes.)
In urinating there are burning arid lancinating pains
in the urethra and in the neck of the bladder.
Urine has an acrid and pungent smell.
Urine speedily deposits a sediment.
Urine passes off cloudy and turbid.
Red sand passes off from time to time together with
the urine, (gravel.)
(1) Dysuria, which is generally fatal when treated allceopathically, has probably no other origin than psora.
(2) The urine often passes off as thin as a thread, or it scatters; the urine often passes off in jerks, at long intervals. This
passing off by intervals often comes from a cramp in the neck
of the bladder, which antagonises the action of the bladder, and
originates in the same psoric miasm. The inflammation of the
bladder, arising from strictures of the urethra, and the fistulae in
vesica, consequent upon such strictures, likewise originate in
psora, though it happens in a few rare cases, that there is a corn
plication of sycosis and psora.



87


Dark yellow urine.
Brown urine.
Blackish urine.
Urine intermixed with blood, also heinaturia.
The prostatic fluid often passes off after urinating
especially after difficult stools; the fluid sometimes
passes off without interruption, drop by drop.'
Nightly pollutions, once, twice, three times a week,
and sometimes even every night."
*Nightly effusion of semen in the woman succeeding
voluptuously-delightful dreams.*
Nightly pollutions; they are attended with evil consequences, not often, but immediately."
Semen passes off during the day almost involuntarily, even when there is little irritation, and often, even
without erection.
Erection, very frequent, long continuing, very painful,
without pollutions.
The senen does not pass,4 even after the embrace has
lasted for a long time, and the erection has been sufficient; but afterwards it passes off either in nightly pollutions or with the urine.
Accumulation of water in the tunica vaginalis testis,
(hydrocele.)
There is never any complete erection, even in spite
of the most voluptuous sensations.
Painful twitches in the muscles of the penis.
(1). The constant loss of the prostatic fluid sometimes results
in consumption.
(2) In healthy and chaste young men, these pollutioiis take
place every 12 or 14 days; this is the order of nature, and induces cheerfulness, strength and contentment.
* NOTE OF THE TRANSLATOR: According to modern physiologists, the woman does not emit semen, but merely mucus.
(3) Gloominess of the intellect, numbness, dimness of thought,
diminished vividness of the imagination, want of memory, depression of spirits, sadness; sight, digestion and appetite are
weakened; stools cease to pass, there arises a pressing of the
blood towards the head, the anus, etc.
(4) During such an embrace the testes remain relaxed, and
hang down more or less.



88


Itchirrg at the scrotum; the scrotum is sometimes
covered with pimples and scabs.
Chronic swelling or knotty induration of one or both
testes, (sarcocele.)
Dwindling, lessening, disappearing of one or both
testes.
Induration and enlargement of the prostatic gland.
Drawin g pain in the testes and the spermatic 'chord.
Painful sensation of contusion in the testes.
Want of sexual desire in both sexes, either frequent
or constant.'
Immoderate, insatiable desire for coition,2 accompanied
with a livid complexion and sickly body.
Sterility, impotence, without there being any organic
defect of the parts of generation.3
Disorder of the menstrual functions; the menses do
not appear regularly on the twenty-eighth day after the
appearance of the former, do not appear without being
accompanied by other morbid symptoms, nor do they
come on suddenly; do not continue uninterruptedly for
four days, with a moderate flow of healthy-coloured,
good blood, until they gradually reach their end on the
fourth day, without the general health of either body or
mind being disturbed; they do not last until the forty(1) Often for many years. In this case, the sexual parts of
either male or female are incapable of pleasurable sensations; the
corpus penis hangs down relaxed, is thinner than the glans,
which feels cold, and looks blueish or white; in the female
parts, the labia majora are inaccessible to irritation, they are relaxed and small; the vagina is dull and incapable of being excited, generally dry; sometimes there is" falling of hair, or total
baldness of the female parts of generation.
(2) Metromania and nymphomania have the same origin.
(3) Too frequent embraces from impotent desires; the imperfect, and watery semen passes off too soon; want of erection;
the semen passes off too scantily; want of sexual desire;
monthly menorrhagia; constant flow of blood; menses either
watery, or too scanty, or suppressed; abundant leucorrhcea, induration of the ovaries; the mammae have either dwindled down
or have become knotty; insensibility, or painful sensibility of
the genital organs are the first and usual symptoms of sterility in
both sexes,



92


Cough, inducing a considerable expectoration.of
mucus, and falling of strength (tabes mucosa).
Attacks of spasmodic cough.'
Violent, intolerable stitches in the chest at each breathing; pain will not allow him to cough; there is no inflammatory fever (spurious pleurisy).
Pain in the chest, on walking, as though the chest were
to burst. Aching pain in the chest on breathing deep,
and sneezing.
Frequently a lightly oppressive pain in the chest;
unless it passes away soon, it degenerates into the deepest dejection of spirits.2
Burning pain in the chest.
Frequent stitches in the chest, with or without cough.
Acute pleurisy; there is great heat of the body, and
stitches in the chest which prevent him from breathing;
accompanied with hemoptysis and headache; he is confined to his bed.
Night-mare; during the night he generally starts from
an oppressive dream, but he is unable to stir, to call, to
speak; and when he endeavours to move, he suffers intolerable pain, as though he were being torn.3
Displacement of breath with stitches in the chest,
coming,on at the slightest motion:4 he cannot advance
a step, (pneumonia)
Asthma, on moving his arms, not in walking.
Attacks of suffocation, especially after midnight; the
patient has to sit up, to leave his bed, to stoop, standing
and leaning on his hands, to open the windows, or go
into the open air, etc.; there is beating of the heart, fol(1) She is suddenly obliged to cough, but is not able to do so
on account of her breath being suddenly cut off, which threatens
suffocation; her face is dark-red, and tumefied; the oesophagus is generally constricted so that not a drop of water will pass;
after the lapse of eight or ten minutes there is generally rising
from the stomach, which terminates the spasm.
(2) The attacks generally last from evening till early in the
morning, through the night.
(3) These attacks are sometimes repeated in one night; especially when he has not taken any fresh air during the day.
(4) Especially on ascending a height.



93


lowed by rising from the stomach or gaping; after this
the spasm ceases with or without cough and expectoration.
Beating of the heart with anxiety, especially during
the night.
Asthma; loud, difficult, sometimes sibilant breathing.
Shortness of breath.
Asthma.during motion, with or without cough.
Asthma; generally coming on whilst the patient is
seated.
Spasmodic asthma; her breath is cut short on going
into the open air.
Asthma; the attacks last for weeks.
Dwindling of the mammae, or excessive enlargement
of the mamma, with falling-in of the teats.
Erysipelas on one of the mamme, (especially in nursing.)
A hard, enlarging and indurating gland, with painful
stitches in one of the mammae.'
Itching eruptions around she teats, (or moist and
scaly.)
Drawing, tearing, straining pains in the small of the
back, in the back, in the back of the neck.
Lancinating and painful stiffness in the back of the
neck, in the small of the back.
Aching pain between the scapulae.
Sensation of weight upon the shoulders.
Drawing, tearing, straining pains in the limbs, partly
in the muscles, partly in the joints, (rheumatism.)
Aching and drawing pains in the periosteum, here and
there, especially in the periosteum of the long bones.2
Stitching pain in the fingers and toes.3
Stitches in the heels and soles of the feet, on standing
up.
(1) Have the different varieties of cancer of the breast any
other cause but psora?
(2) In the places where the pain is located, the pain is excited
by touching them; they feel bruised or sore.
(3) In worse and older cases, this pain becomes lancinating.
4*



94


Burning in the soles* of the feet.1
In the joints he feels a kind of tearing, like scraping
upon the bones with red-hot swelling; touching it, or the
contact with air gives him insupportable pain; he is
at the same time extremely sensitive and peevish, (gout
in the feet, hands, etc.)'
The joints of the fingers are swollen, aching; touching
or bending them gives him pain.
Thickening of the joints; the joints remain hardswollen; on bending them he suffers pain.
The joints feel stiff, with painful and difficult motion;
the ligaments appear to be too short.'
Motion of the joints is painful.4
The joints creak on being moved.
The joints are easily strained by being pulled or bent."
Increasing susceptibility of straining a joint, even by
a very slight muscular effort, by light mechanical labour, on stretching the arms above the head for the purpose of reaching something elevated, on lifting light
things, on turning the body quickly, on rolling something, etc. This, often slight, straining or extending
the muscles, sometimes induces the most violent diseases, swoons, hysteric complaints of all degrees,6 fevers, hemoptysis, etc., whereas a person that is not af(1) Especially during the night under a feather-bed.
(2) The pains grow worse either in the day or in the night.
After every attack, and when the inflammation has ceased, the
joints of the hand, the knee, the foot, the big toe, experience
pain on motion, on standing up; they feel insufferably benumbed,
and the limb is weak.
(3) For instance: the tendo Achillis on standing up, stiffness
of the tarsus, the knees, partly momentary, (after having been
seated, or on standing up, etc., partly permanent (contraction.)
(4) For instance: the shoulder-joint on elevating the arm;
the tarsus experiences pain on standing up, as though it would
break.
(5) For instance: The tarsus, the wrist-joint, the joint of the
thumb.
(6) Often violent pain in the crown of the head-the pain is
also felt externally on touching the head-it comes on all on a
sudden; or sudden pain in the small of the back, or pain in



95


fected with psora, is able to lift any burdens he pleases,
without any inconvenience.'
The joints are easily strained or dislocated, in consequence of slipping or any sort of wrong motion.'
In the tarsus there is a feeling of pain, as though the
joint would break on standing up.
Mollities ossium, curvature of the spine, (hunchback) curvature of the long bones in the thighs or legs,
(rickets.)
Fragility of the bones.
Painful sensitiveness of the skin, of the muscles and
of the periosteum on pressing moderately.3
Insufferable pain in the skin' (or in the muscles, or
the womb; sometimes stitches in the side of the chest, or between the scapulae, that arrest breathing, or painful stiffness of
the back of the neck or spine, frequent and loud eructations, etc.
(1) The common people, especially in the country, try, in
this case, to alleviate their sufferings by a few magnetic
strokes; it is often attended with some success, though this
-is not lasting; the disposition for straining the joint remains.
A female, whom the Germans call " Streichefrau," makes a
few passes with the tips of her thumbs, generally across the
scapulae towards the axillae, or along the spine, sometines starting from the pit of the stomach, and moving along the lower
border of the ribs; she generally presses too hard.
(2) For instance, the tarsus on stepping wron--also, the
shoulder-joint. Under this head belongs the gradual luxation of
the hip-joint; the head of the femur starts from the acetabulum,
the leg becoming either longer or shorter, and causing limping.
(3) Upon striking moderately against something, he feels
a violeut and long pain; those places of the body, upon
which he rests in bed, are excessively painful; hence it is that
he frequently changes his position" in the night; the ischia and
the muscles, which he compresses by sitting, are very painful;
a slight blow with the hand upon the thigh, causes great pain.
slight knocking against something hard, leaves behind blue spots
or streaks of blood under the skin.
(4) Extremely various. These pains which produce a corresponding sensitiveness of the mind, are often burning, shooting,
lancinating, often they cannot be described; they affect especially the upper parts of the body, the face (tic douloureux), the
skin of the neck, etc.; they come on on the parts being slightly
touched, on speaking, chewing-they are excited in the shoulder
by slight pressure or motion of the fingers.



96


the periosteum) of one part of the body, coming on in
consequence of slightly moving this part or a part which
is more remote; the pain may come, for instance, from
writing, in the axilla, or in the side of the neck, etc.
whereas sawing, and other violent labour performed
with that hand causes no pain; a similar pain is excited
by any kind of motion of the mouth, speaking for example, in the neighbouring parts; the lips and the cheeks
feel pain on the slightest motion.
Numbness of the skin or of the muscles of particular
parts and limbs.'
Insensibility of particular fingers, or of the hands and
feet.'
Crawling, sometimes pricking and crawling in arms,
legs, and other parts, even in the tips of the fingers, as
if the parts were benumbed.
Crawling or internal itching, especially of the lower
extremities, (in the evening in bed, or early on- waking
up in the morning); the position of those extremities
has to be changed every moment.
Painful coldness in some parts.
Burning pain in some parts, often without having
changed the external temperature of the body.Coldness, either frequent or constant, of the whole
body, or of one side of the body; also, coldness of particular parts, cold hands and feet, that cannot be warmed in the "bed during night.
Constant chilliness, even when there is no change in
the external temperature of the body.
Frequent flushes of heat, especially in the face, more
frequently with redness than without it; he feels suddenly, and excessively hot, in rest or on slight motion;
(1) Tact is wanting-the fingers feel like hollow bulbs, either
periodically or permanently, (constant want of sensibility.)
(2) The limb is white, bloodless, without feeling-and cold, often for hours, especially when the air is cool; (moving a piece
of zinc over the fingers or toes, towards their extremities, relieves the symptoms quickly and entirely, but acts merely as a
palliative.)



100


Sweat only on one side of the body, or only on the
upper half of the body, or only on the lower extremities
Increasing susceptibility for cold, either of the whole
body (wetting the hands with warm and then with cold
water, as is done in washing, sometimes induces a cold),
or of particular parts, head, neck, breast, abdomen, feet,
etc. in a slight draught, or after slight moistening of the
parts;' even already in a cool room, or when the air is
moist with rain, or the b-arometer low.
The pains which have been formerly experienced in
parts injured, wounded, broken, although they are now
cured and cicatrized, become again very acute at the
approach of an important change of the weather, intense"
cold, storm, atmosphere pregnant with electricity.
(Edematous swelling of the feet, or of one foot, of the
hands or face, of the abdomen or scrotum, etc. (anasarca.
Attacks of sudden heaviness in the arms or legs.
Attacks of paralytic weakness, paralytic lassitude of
one arm, one hand, one leg, without pain, either sudden
and temporary, or beginning imperceptibly and continuing progressively.
Sudden bending of the knees.
Children fall without any perceptible cause. Similar
attacks of weakness in the legs may be perceived in fullgrown persons; in walking, one foot glides this way,
the other that way, etc.
During a walk in the open air, he has sudden attacks
of weakness especially in the legs.2
(1) This susceptibility is attended with many important bad
consequences which make their appearance immediately. Pains
in the joints, headaches, cold in the head, sore throat and inflammation of the throat, catarrh, swelling of the cervical glands,
hoarseness, cough, oppressed breathing, stitches in the chest,
fever, dyspeptic complaints, colic, vomiting, diarrhea, pain in
stomach, rising of water from the stomach, sometimes convulsions in the face and other parts of the body, jaundice-like colour
of the skin, etc. No one, who is not psorie, suffers the least inconvenience from such causes.
(2) Sometimes this feeling of weakness appears to reach the



101


While sitting the person feels insufferably tired;
walking diminishes this feeling.
The joints are easily strained by wrong seizing or
stepping; this often increases to dislocation; for example in the tarsus, the shoulder-joint, etc.
The creaking of the joints increases by slight motion;
it is accompanied with a disagreeable sensation.
The limbs feel easily benumbed; this numbness is
induced by slight causes, for example, leaning the head
upon thq arin, crossing the legs while sitting, etc.
The cramps in some muscles increase; this symptom
comes on by slight causes.
Slow, cramp-like straining of the flexor muscles of
the extremities.
Sudden twitches in some muscles and organs even in
waking; for example, in the tongue, the lips, the
muscles of the face, of the pharynx, the eyes, the jaws,
hands and feet.
Tonic shortening of the flexor muscles (spasms.)
Involuntary turning and twisting of the head or the
extremities with full consciousness (St. Vitus dance,)
Sudden attacks of fainting and sinking of strength
with loss of consciousness.
Attacks of tremor in the limbs, without anxiety.
Long continued tremor, sometimes striking with the
hands, arms, and legs.
Attacks of loss of consciousness, lasting for a moment or a minute; during these attacks, the head is
inclined upon the shoulder to one side, and in one or
the other parts of the body, there is a jerking motion,
sometimes not.
Different kinds of epilepsy.
Constant gaping, stretching and straining of the limbs.
Drowsiness during the day, often immediately after
sitting down, especially after a meal.
pit of the stomach; here it assumes the form of a sort of rabid
hunger, which deprives him of all his strength; he is attacked with
tremor, and is obliged to lie down for a while.



102


He finds it difficult to fall asleep in the evening on
lying down; he often lies awake for hours.
He spends the night in a sort of slumber.
Anxiety prevents him from sleeping, every night;
this anxiety often is so violent that he has to leave his
bed, and to walk about the room.
He is deprived of sleep, at any rate ot sound sleep,
from three o'clock in the morning.
On closing the eyes, he sees all sorts of fanciful images, grimaces.
On falling asleep she is disturbed by all sorts of
fancies; she has to rise and walk about.
Vivid dreams as if in a state of waking; sad, frightful, anxious, vexatious, libidinous dreams.
Speaking or screaming during sleep.
Somnambulism; in the night he rises with his eyes
shut; he does all sorts of things, even dangerous things,
with ease; without knowing anything about it on waking
up.
Suffocating fits'during sleep, (night-mare.)
All sorts of troublesome pains in the night; thirst,
dryness of ihe throat, mouth, frequent urinating.
On waking up early in the morning, he feels drowsy,
unrefreshed, more tired than he did in the evening
before, on lying down; after rising, it takes hours before
he recovers from this weariness.
After having spent an uneasy night, he often feels
stronger, than after an easy, sound sleep.
Intermittent fever, even when this disease is neither
sporadic, nor epidemic,' nor endemic; the forms, duration. and type of the fever may be different; quotidian,
tertian, quartan, quintan, or the fever may appear every
seven days.
Every evening there are chills with blue nails.
Single chills every evening.
(1) It may be asserted that epidemic intermittents never attack people free from psora; wherever these attacks take place,
it may be supposed that there is a disposition for them, originating in psora.



103


Every evening the patient experiences heat with rush
of blood to the head, red cheeks, often alternating with
chills.
Intermittent fever of some weeks duration; this is
followed by a moist, itching eruption which lasts for
some weeks, and disappears as soon as the fever sets
in again; this alternation may continue for years.
All sorts of moral and mental disturbances.'
Melancholy, either alone or united with alienation,
sometimes alternating with frenzy and moments of rationality.
Oppressive anxiety early on waking up.
Oppressive anxiety in the evening on lying down.'
Repeated attacks of fearfullness during the day (with
or without pain), or at certain hours of the day or night;
during these attacks the patient has no rest, is obliged
to move this way and that way; sometimes sweat
breaks out.
Melancholy, beating of the heart and anxiety woke
her up in the night (mostly immediately before the appearance of the menses.)
SMania of self-destruction;3 (spleen?)
(1) Neither in my practice, nor in a lunatic asylum have I
ever met with a patient attacked with melancholy, madness or
frenzy, in whom these diseases were not based upon psora,
sometimes complicated with syphilis.
(2) In some patients these anxieties cause a violent perspiration to break out; others experience only orgasm and pulsations
in all the arteries; in others again this anxiety causes a feeling
of constriction in the throat, as if they were suffocating; others
feel as though their blood ceased to flow, which causes the anxiety.
In some the anxiety is accompanied with fear, exciting images
and thoughts which seem to cause the anxiety; in others the
anxiety exists without them.
(3) This kind of mental or moral disease which originates in
psora, does not seem to have been sufficiently attended to. A
certain feeling of necessity induces those patients to kill themselves, although they have no anxiety, no anxious thoughts, and
seem to enjoy their full understanding. Nothing can save them
except the cure of their psora, provided its manifestations are
noticed in time. I say " in time," for in the last stages of the
malady, these monomaniacs never speak to any one of their



105


Sudden change of humour; often the patient is very
gay and even extremely so, and then suddenly low-spirited, for instance: on account of his disease, or something of no importance.
Sudden transition from cheerfulness to sadness, or
peevishness without any apparent cause.
These are some of the principal symptoms of latent
psora which I have had occasion to observe. Their
frequent occurrence, or their continuance, show  that
the latent psora is becoming active in the system. They
are at the same time the elements which constitute the
innumerable secondary complaints arising from     the
psoric reaction in persons unfavourably situated, and assuming all sorts of forms in proportion as a person's
constitution, education, habits, occupation, external
circumstances and the physical or moral impressions to
which he is subject, differ. The number of those secondary ailments, which are described as distinct and
independent diseases in the older pathological works,*
far exceeds the morbid symptoms which we find enumerated in these works.
attended with disagreeable consequences; trembling, fainting,
headache, chills, etc. Smell and taste are often excessively
sensitive. In many cases, moderate exercise, talking, moderate warmth, coldness, open air, moistening the skin with water,
etc. are injurious. Many are affected even in their rooms from
the sudden changes of the weather; most of these patients complain in stormy and damp weather, few only when the sky is
dry and bright. In some, the full moon, in others, the new moon
make an unfavourable impression.
* Those secondary ailments bear the following names: scrofula, rickets, spina ventosa, atrophy, marasmus, consumption, pulmonary consumption, asthma, tabes mucosa, laryngeal phthisis,
chronic catarrh, constant cold in the head, difficult dentition,
worms, and consequent diseases, dyspepsia, spasms in the abdomen, hypochondria, hysteria, anasarca, dropsy, ovarian dropsy,
dropsy of the uterus, hydrocele, hydrocephalus, amenorrhoea and
dismenorrhoea, hemorrhage from the uterus, hematenlesis, hemoptysis, hemorrhages, discharges from the vagina, dysuria, ischuria,
enuresis, diabetes, catarrh of the bladder, hematuria, stricture of
the urethra, nephralgia, gravel, stricture of the intestines, blind
and flowing hemorrhoids, fistula in ano, difficult stools, constipa



106


Those ailments are the characteristic secondary
symptoms* of the psoric miasm, which manifests itself
by these symptoms as a hydra-headed monster pregnant
with disease.t
tion, chronic diarrhoea, induration of the liver, jaundice, blue disease, disease of the heart, beating of the heart, spasms of the
chest, dropsy of the chest, miscarriage, sterility, metromania, impotence, induration of the testes, dwindling of the testes, prolapsus
uteri, inversion of the womb, inguinal, femoral and umbilical hernia, dislocations from some internal cause, curvature of the spine,
chronic inflammation of the eyes, fistula lachrymalis, short and
long-sightedness, day and night-blindness; obscuration of the cornea, cataract, glaucoma, amaurosis, deafness, deficient smell or
taste, chronic head-ache on one side, pain in the face, tinea capitis,
scabs,.crusta lactea, herpes, pimples, nettle-rash, lypoma, goitre,
varix, aneurisms, erysipelas, adipose sarcoma, osteo-sarcoma,
scirrhus, cancer of the lips, cheeks, breast and womb; fungus'hematodes, rheumatism, gout in the hips, in the joints and feet;
apoplectic fits, spasms, convulsions, swoons, vertigo, paralysis,
contractions, epilepsy, St. Vitus' dance, melancholy, insanity,
imbecility, nervous affections, etc.    *
* Councillor Kopp, an alloeopathic physician who is approaching to Homceopathy, pretends having seefi chronic diseases disappear of themselves; he may have seen a few symptoms disappear, which the old school is so foolish as to consider complete diseases.
f I admitthat my doctrine: " All non-venereal chronic diseases
that.can neither be cured by regular diet nor favourable circumstances, which on the contrary, increase in the course of time,
originate in psora," is too comprehensive and even overwhelming for all who have not maturely reflected upon my arguments,
or for narrow intellects. But my doctrine is not the less true.
But because the patient is not able to recollect having had a few
itch-vesicles between the time of his birth and the present moment, or because he is ashamed of confessing having had the
itch on account of its being considered a shameful disease, is
this a reason why such a chronic disease should not be considered psoric. The non-confessing of the patient proves nothing
to the contrary.
As long therefore as the opponents of my doctrine cannot show
that the chronic affections which I have alluded to in the preceding paragraphs, and which mere diet, were it ever so regular, a
strong constitution and favourable external circumstances are
not sufficient to eradicate from the system, can originate in some
other than the psorie miasm, which maintains, strengthens and
develops them; there is an overwhelming probability based up



107


on analogy, that all other complaints which are similar to the
preceding, both in nature and development, originate in psora,
although the patient may not be aware of having ever been infected with the itch.
It is an easy matter to doubt things which are not before us
in visible forms; but this proves nothing; according to the old
rule, proving is the business of those who deny, " negantis est
probare."
The antipsorics are therefore not necessary to prove the
chronic nature of those maladies in case the infection by the itch"virus should be denied; the salutary actioql of the antipsorics
only serves in the same sense as the counter-proof of an accurately-solved arithmetical problem.
ýince it is proved that other medicines, even when chosen
strictly homceopathically, do not heal the above mentioned chronic diseases as thoroughly and permanently as the so-called antipsorics, because the latter cover the whole extent of the progressively appearing symptoms of the psoric disturbance:-I
do not see why these should not be called antipsorics in preference to all other remedies.
I sometimes consider certain acute diseases, such as inflammation of the throat, of the chest, etc., results of an excited psora.
This, too, cannot be denied, as it is done, under the pretence, that
those inflammations may be controlled by the antiphlogistic remedies, aconite, belladonna, mercury, etc. The proof that they originate in latent psora, is this, that their frequent return can only
be prevented by the antipsorics.






SYCOSIS.


THE chronic miasm which we designate by the term
Sycosis, has only prevailed from time to time, and has
given origin to the smallest number of chronic diseases.
Sycosis was especially spread in Germany between the
years 1809 and 1814, during the war with France;
ever since then the disease has been decreasing.
Sycosis, being supposed to be homogeneous with
syphilis, has been heretofore treated with mercury inter- -
nally, and externally by cauterization, burning, cutting, or
ligatures. This violent external treatment has been employed against the excrescences upon the genital organs.
The excrescences first appear upon those parts of the
body several days and often weeks, after the infection by
the act of coition has taken place. They are accompanied
with a sort of gonorrhcea* from the urethra, are sometimes dry and in the form of warts, but more frequently
soft, spongy, emitting a fetid fluid, sui generis, of a
sweetish taste, (almost resembling that of herring-pickle,)
bleeding readily and having the form of a cox-comb or a
cauli-flower (brassica botrytes.) In man they appear
upon the glans and around or beneath the prepuce; in
woman they cover the parts surrounding the pudenda,
and the pudenda themselves, in great abundance.
* In this kind of gonorrhcea the fluid which comes out of
the urethra, looks like thick pus; micturition is not very
painful, but the penis feels hard and swollen; upon its back
it is sometimes covered with glandular tubercles, and it is
very painfulto the touch.



112


The natural and immediate consequence of such violent treatment was, that the excrescences generally came
out again, and were again subjected to painful and cruel
treatment. In case, however, they did not re-appear in
their original form, they broke forth in the shape of more
disagreeable and more dangerous secondary ailments;
for neither the violent removal of the external embodiInent or Nvicarious symptom of sycosis, nor the internal
administration of mercury, which is not homogeneous to
the miasm of sycosis, had the least influence in diminishing the intensity of this miasm and preventing it from
affecting the whole organism. Beside the general health
being undermined by the mercury which, in the case of
sycosis, was generally given in the largest doses and the
most active preparations, there are other pernicious results consequent upon this abuse of mercury. There
are excrescences formed in other parts of the body either
in the shape of whitish, spongy, painful and flat elevations in the cavity of the mouth, upon the tongue, the
palate, the lips; or in the shape of large, elevated,
brown, dry tubercles in the axillae, upon the neck, upon
the hairy scalp, etc. The abuse of mercury may also
be followed by other bodily affections, such as the contraction of the tendons of the flexor muscles, especially
those of the fingers, etc.
Both the gonorrhbcea* and the excrescences of sycosis
are cured in the most thorough and durable manner by
* The miasm of the common clap seems to affect the
urinary organs only locally; it does not pervade the whole
organism. The common gonorrhcea either yields to a drop
of the recently obtained juice of parsley, provided its use is
indicated by a frequent desire to urinate; or else to a small
dose of cannabis, cantharides, or copaiva, according as the
other symptoms indicate the use of these different remedies.
The highest preparations of these remedies should always
be used, unless the patient has previously been weakened
by allceopathic stimulants, or a latent psora has made its
appearance; in this case a secondary gonorrhcea is frequently formed, which can only be cured by antipsorics.



113


the internal administration of a few globules of the decillion preparation of thuya,* which ought to be allowed to
act for the space of fifteen, twenty, thirty, or forty days.
After this lapse of time you give an equally small dose
of nitric acid, letting it act during an equally long period.
These two remedies are sufficient to cure both the gonorrhcea and the excrescences of sycosis. In the most
inveterate and most difficult cases, the larger excrescences may be touched once a day with the fresh juice of
thuya half diluted with alcohol and squeezed out of the
green leaves of the plant.
It sometimes happens that, in consequence of the
violent allceopathic, treatment of sycosis, other chronic
affections may have been formed in the system, that, for
instance, a latent psora may have become manifest,t
and that the psoric and the syphilitic miasm may form
a trinitary compound of disease, which will take place
if the latter miasm should have been badly treated on a
former occasion. In this case, the order of treatment is
the following: First, we annihilate the psoric miasm by
the subsequently indicated antipsorics; then we use the
remedies indicated for sycosis, and lastly, the best mer* Thuya is homceopathic to sycosis; see Materia Medica
Pura, p. V. If other doses of thuya should be required, the
inferior potencies may then be used, (vIII., VI., IV.,.;)
these will then be found to affect the vital principle more efficiently.t
f NOTE OF THE TRANSLATOR.-In my inaugural thesis published by Mr. Radde, and also in the preface to this translation,
I have conclusively shown that the remedial agent makes no
direct impression upon the vital principle, but that the impression is made upon the disease, and that, by means of this impression, the vital principle is freed from its embarrassed condition.
I In young people, recent sycosis is seldom found
complicated with psora. Wherever this complication exists,
it is owing to the pernicious assaults which have been
made upon the constitution by the improper administration
of mercury for the cure of sycosis.



114
curial preparation against syphilis. These different orders of remedies are alternately employed, if necessary,
until the cure is completed. Leave to each medicine
the necessary time to complete its action.
In treating sycosis internally, according to my rule,
no external remedies should be used, except the juice of
the thuya in the cases indicated above. If there should
be a watery discharge from the excrescenses, dry clean
lint may be applied.



SYP H ILIS.
THE syphilitic miasm is much more general than the
miasm of sycosis. For the last four centuries, it has
given origin to a vast number of chronic affections.
The treatment of syphilis is only difficult when there
is a complication with the psoric miasin, after it has
broke forth from its latent condition. Sometimes, but
rarely, syphilis is complicated with sycosis; whenever
this complication exists, it never exists without the additional complication of psora.
In the treatment of syphilis, three different conditions
may occur. First, the syphilitic disease may exist in
its gennine form, together with the chancre, or, in case
the chancre should have been removed by external applications, it may exist with the bubo, which must then be
considered as the representative of the chancre;* secondly, it may exist without being complicated with another miasm, though both the chancre and the bubo
may have been removed; and thirdly, it may exist in
a state of complication with another chronic miasm,
either with the chancre or bubo, or after their removal
by local applications.
The chancre generally appears between the seventh
and fourteenth day after the infection has taken place;
* In rare cases, the bubo is the first and immediate result of an impure coition, without any previous chancre;
generally, however, it is consequent upon the removal of
the chancre by local applications, and is, in this case, a
troublesome representative of the latter.



116


it rarely appears either sooner or later, and generally affects the parts which have been first tainted with the
virus. The chancre first appears in the form of a little
vesicle, which is soon changed to a painfully stinging
ulcer, with an elevated border. This ulcer may remain
upon the same spot during the life-time of the patient,
and, although it may become enlarged, yet the secondary
symptoms of syphilis will never make their appearance
as long as the chancre remains.
The allceopathic physician, not knowing that the entire organism has become infected with the syphilitic
miasm, even before the appearance of the chancre and
immediately after the impure coition has been accomplished, looks upon the chancre as a simply local ulcer
which ought to be removed by the external application of desiccating and cauterizing substances, and
which will remain quite harmless, provided it is not left too
long on the skin; for, in this case, the absorbing vessels might carry the poison into the internal organism,
and, in this way, produce a general syphilitic affection,
whereas these evil consequences might be avoided by
a speedy removal of the chancre. This is both the
doctrine and the practice. By this practice, the physician deprives the internal disease of its vicarious symptom, the chancre; and, by the removal of the chancre,
he forces the disease to embody itself externally in the
more troublesome and speedily suppurating bubo. And
after this too has been removed, as is foolishly done, by
external treatment, the disease is forced to manifest itself
throughout the organism with all the secondary symptoms of a fully developed syphilis. This unavoidable
development of the internal syphilitic disease generally
takes place after the lapse of two or three months. So
far from relieving the patient, the physician positively
injures him.
John Hunter asserts: "Not one patient in fifteen
will escape syphilis, when the chancre is removed
* Treatise on the Venereal Diseases, Leipsic, 1787, p.
531.



117


merely by local treatment;" and in another part of his
work,* he assures us: " that the local removal of the
chancre, should it even have been accomplished ever so
speedily, was always followed by an outbreak of the internal syphilitic disease'."
The same doctrine is emphatically taught by Fabre,f
who says " that the local removal of the chancre is always followed by syphilis; that Petit had cut off a portion of the labia of the genital organs of a woman, which
had been affected, for some days, with venereal chancre;
that the wound indeed healed, but that the syphilitic
disease nevertheless broke out.
It is incredible that physicians, in spite of the experience and emphatic statements of such great observers,
should have shut their eves to the fact; that the venereal
disease existed already in its fulness in the organism
before the chancre had made its appearance, and that it
was an unpardonable mistake to remove the chancre by
external applications, and to consider this local removal
of the chancre a complete cure of the disease. On
the contrary, by this local removal of the chancre, the
syphilitic disease was not only forced to ramify into its
secondary symptoms, but the physician deprived himself of a sure and infallible indication of the thorough
and permanent cure of the internal disease. As long as
the chancre existed, the organism was yet tainted with
the syphilitic virus; whereas, the disappearance of the
chancre consequent upon the internal administration of
appropriate remedies, was a sure sign of the internal disease having been completely and permanently cured.
In my practice of fifty years' duration, I have never
seen syphilis breaking out in the system, whenever the
chancre was cured by internal remedies, without having
been mismanaged by external treatment; it mattered
not whether the chancre had been left standing for
* The same work, p. 551-553.
t Fabre, Lettres, Supplement a Son Trait6 des Maladies
Veneriennes, Paris, 1786.



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one, two, or three globules of the billion degree, for the
cure of syphilis. The higher degrees, however, even
the decillion degree, act more speedily, more thoroughly, and more mildly. If more than one dose should be
required, which is seldom the case, the lower degrees
may then be employed.
In the same way as the chancre or the bubo gave
incontrovertible evidence of the internal disease, the
disappearance of the chancre consequent upon the internal use of the best mercurial preparation, without,
however, the concomitant use of any external application,
is an infallible indication of the internal disease having
been completely and radically cured.
But on the other hand, this correspondence between
the internal disease and its vicarious symptom shows
that the mere external removal of the chancre, inasmuch
as it does not result from the cure of the internal disease, leaves the deluded patient just as syphilitic after
the removal of the chancre as he was before.
The second stage of the disease is that rare stage,,
in which the chancre has been speedily, though foolishly, removed from the skin by external applications without the organism having been much disturbed by either
internal or external violent remedies. Such a comparatively easy removal can only take place in persons that
are not affected with a difficult chronic disease, in whom
psora is consequently in its latent condition. Even in
this stage, the disease, provided it is not complicated
with psoric affections, may be easily cured, and the
secondary symptoms of syphilis may be prevented by
the internal administration of the above described mercurial preparation; although the violent removal of the
chancre by external remedies makes it more difficult to
be certain of the cure of the internal disease, than if
the chancre had first been transformed to a benign ulcer
and had then disappeared of itself, in consequence of
the internal disease having been cured by internal
remedies.
However, even in the presence of these disadvantages, the attentive observer may discover a sign which



122


psoric disease at the time when the syphilitic infection
took place; or else, the psora which existed in the organism at the time when the syphilitic infection took place,
may have been called out by the violent drugs and painful external remedies of the allceopathic physician, the
effect of which was to remove the external symptom
of syphilis after protracted efforts, to undermine the
general health of the patient, and to force the psoric and
the syphilitic miasms into a combination with each other.
Such a combination can only take place between syphilis and psora in a state of manifest development.
These are the reasons why psora is so often found
complicated with syphilis. The poor patient is often
assailed for months with mercurial frictions, large doses
of calomel, corrosive sublimate, and other violent mercurial preparations; inducing fever, dysentery, neverending and exhausting salivation, pains in the joints,
sleeplessness, etc. But all these violent remedies not
only leave the syphilitic miasm uncured, but, in combination with the intermediate use of weakening warm
baths and purgatives, they rouse the latent psora much
before the time when a cure of the syphilitic disease
could be effected by means of such an improper treatment, and, in this way, enable the psoric and the syphilitic
miasms to combine.
It may here be observed that it is the nature of the
psoric miasms to break forth in consequence of great
concussions of the system, and violent inroads upon the
general health.
By this combination of syphilis and psora a sort of
spurioius, masked syphilis is formed, which the English
physicians designate by the term pseudo syphilis. This
is a sort of monstrous double-disease,' which no physi* It is even more than a double-disease. The large and
frequently repeated doses of the violent mercurial preparations have added their inherent medicinal disease, which,
together with the exhaustion consequent upon such treatment, reduces the patient to a truly sad plight. In such



123


eian has been hitherto able to cure, because no physician
has, up to this moment, known the extent and nature
either of latent or developed psora, and has much less
suspected its combination with syphilis. No one was
therefore able to remove the psoric action which was the
only cause of that pseudo-syphilis; no one was able to
cure the syphilitic disease by freeing it from its horrible
combination with psora; and, on the other hand, the
psoric miasm withstood every attempt at cure, because
it cannot be cured unless syphilis is cured at the same
time.
In order to reach, with the greatest possible success,
this so-called masked syphilis, the first thing which the
physician has to do, is to remove from the patient all
hurtful external influences, to put him upon an easily
and vigorously nourishing diet, and to regulate his
general mode of life to his greatest advantage. After
this has been accomplished, the physician administers
the most appropriate antipsoric, in the mode which will
be indicated hereafter; this may be followed by a second
antipsoric to be chosen agreeably to the new symptoms;
and when this last remedy has completed its action, a
dose of the anti-syphilitic mercury may be exhibited,
being permitted to act three, five, or seven weeks, as
long as it is capable of exercising a curative influence.
In old difficult cases this course is not sufficient to
effect a cure. There may remain ailments which are
neither purely psoric or syphilitic and therefore require
the last assistance of the physician. A similar treatment is here to be repeated. First we exhibit one or
more anti-psorics, in proportion as they are indicated by
the symptoms, until the last trace of all psoric action has
vanished. After this we repeat the mercury, using an
inferior potency, and allowing it to act until not only
the manifest syphilitic symptoms have vanished, but, inasmuch as this disappearance of these syphilitic symptoms, whose nature is so extremely changeable, is no
cases hepar sulphuris may be given in preference to pure
sulphur, on account of its anti-psoric virtue.



124


positive proof of their radical cure, we allow the mercury
to act until the skin has recovered its healthy colour at the
spot upon which the venereal chancre had been developed, and afterwards removed by cauteries. Manifest syphilitic symptoms may be considered the following: ulcers of the tonsils with lancinating pain, round coppercoloured spots shining through the skin, non-itching pustules, especially in the face, set upon blueish-reddish bottom; cutaneous ulcers on the hairy scalp, and upon the
skin of the penis, smooth, pale, clean, covered with nothing but mucus, and on a level with the sound skin; boring nightly pains in the nodes, etc.
In my practice I have only seen two cases* of a complication of the three chronic miasms, sycosis, syphilis,
and psora.
This complication I treated according to the principles laid down above. First, I directed my remedies against the psoric miasm; and then against the
other two miasms, beginning with the one whose symptoms were most prominent at the time. Afterwards
"* A bricklayer had caught the syphilitic virus from his
wife. The genital organs were the seat of the affection.
The patient was not able to describe the disease with sufficient clearness to enable me to decide whether the primitive
infection had been chancre or sycosis. The violent mercurial preparations which had been used against the infection, had destroyed the uvula, had pierced the palate, and
had affected the nose to such an extent that the fleshy parts
were mostly eaten away, and the remaining portion was
swollen and inflamed, and pierced like a honeycomb by ulcers.
He suffered great pain, and emitted an intolerably foetid
smell. He had also a psoric ulcer on the leg. The anti.
psoric remedies improved the ulcers to a certain degree,
healed the ulcer upon the leg, and removed the burning
pain, and also the foctid odour of the nose considerably.
The remedies employed against sycosis also helped some.
But, upon the whole, very little was accomplished, until the
patient received a small dose of the mercurial preparation,
by means of which a cure was speedily effected. The
nose, of course, was irretrievably lost.



125


the remaining portion of the psoric symptoms was removed by the corresponding antipsorics, and then the
last traces of syphilis and sycosis by other adequate
remedies. The complete and radical cure of sycosis,
may be recognised by the same indications, as the cure
of the syphilitic miasm, viz., by the healthy colour of
the skin being restored at the places upon which the
cauliflower excrescence had been located; whenever
this excrescence is removed by mere external remedies,
the place which had been covered with it, exhibits an
unhealthy looking skin.


f



PSORA.
BEFORE I enter upon the exposition of my views
on the third chronic miasm, it appears important to
me, to premise the following general remarks.
The infection by means of one of the three known
chronic miasms is generally the work of a moment;
but the complete development of the disease consequent
upon such an infection, throughout the whole organism,
requires more time.  Not until several days have
elapsed, during which the miasmatic disease has completed its internal development, does kind nature cause
that disease to ultimate in some local symptom,which
receives the internal disease into itself, as it were, and
hushes or calms it. The vital forces enjoy a sort of
protection in thlis local symptom, which is formed upon
one of the least dangerous parts of the external skin,
generally upon the spot, where the nervous system has
first become affected by the contagious miasm.
It is astonishing that this mode of action on the part
of nature should have escaped the observation of physicians. They might have seen it at least in the course
which nature pursues in regard to the syphilitic miasm,
which they had treated for the space of three hundred
years, and would then not have failed in drawing conclusions relative to the two other chronic miasms.
It seems to me unpardonable that physicians, in
spite of all this experience, should have mistaken the
venereal chancre for a mere external cutaneous something, which had nothing to do with the internal organism, and which, therefore, ought to be unhesitatingly



129
It is therefore a self-evident truth that the cure of the
internal psoric disease by means of the anti-psoric remedies, can only be accomplished in an easy manner, as
long as the primitive eruption still exists upon the skin;
and, on the other hand, we may infer from the above
remarks, that the method used by allceopathic physicians
of removing the eruption from the skin by external applications, is just as pernicious as the removal of this
eruption by means of the appropriate homaeopathic
internal remedy is rational and beneficent. By this latter method the whole internal disease, together with its
vicarious symptom, is effectually, thoroughly, and permanently banished from the organism, and that host of
horrible secondary affections with which the patient is
tate the cure of the psoric diseaseby bringing the eruption
out again by artificial means. My object was to check the
secretive functions of the skin, and to induce it by this
kind of homoeopathic proceeding, to reproduce the erup.
tion. For this purpose I ordered the patient to put a plaster upon his back, and, if possible, upon other parts of his
body. The plaster was prepared by slowly melting six
ounces of Burgundy pitch, which, after having been removed from the fire, was carefully mixed with an ounce of
Venetian turpentine. A portion of this mixture was spread
warm upon soft goat-skiu. For this purpose may also be
used yellow wax mixed with fir turpentine; also taffetas silk
covered with elastic resin. It is not the stimulating virtue of the mixture which helped to reproduce the eruption;
for, upon a person not affected with the psoric virus, the
above plaster produces neither eruption nor itching.  I
found this method to be the most efficacious in exciting the
skin for the reproduction of the eruption. Nevertheless,
however patiently the patients bore the infliction of this
plaster, a complete and sufficiently lasting eruption was
never produced. All that I was able to obtain was, to produce a few itching vesicles, which, however, disappeared
again from the skin as soon as the plaster was removed.
More frequently the plaster induced a sort of moist soreness
of the skin. The best result of the plaster was a more or



130


invariably assailed after the violent external removal of
the psoric eruption is destroyed in its very germ.
The excuse of which the private physician (for the
hospital physician has no excuse) avails himself, is
quite delusive. He says that "not knowing when,
where, and from what person the infection has been
caught, he cannot be sure whether the few vesicles
which appear upon the skin are really the itch, and
that he cannot, therefore, be made responsible for the
evil consequences which may attend the suppression of
those vesicles by means of lead-water, or ointments of
zinc and mercury; and that rich parents desired this
suppression to be accomplished as speedily as possible."
Such an excuse cannot be regarded; for every
conscientious physician ought to know that no eruption
whatsoever ought to be removed from the skin* by
external applications. The human skin never produces
less violent itching which occurred upon the skin, especially at night, and often spread over those parts of the
body that were not covered with the plaster. This itching produced indeed a striking alleviation of the most violent secondary psoric affections, such as tubercular phthisis.
But, in most cases, such a result was either impossible (generally there was but a slight itching) or, if I obtained the
itching in a high degree, the patient found it so intolerable
that he could not have borne it for a sufficient length of
time to obtain permanent relief from his psoric affection.
On removing the plaster, even the most vehement itching
was stopped, the eruption disappeared again, and the
disease remained the same. This shows that the second
eruption does not possess the same character as the primi.
tive eruption did, and that it is therefore of no avail for
the purpose of facilitating the cure by internal remedies.
Moreover the troublesome itching of the artificially produced eruption, and the exhaustion consequent upon that
itching by far outweigh the little value which the method
here indicated might otherwise possess.
* See Organon of the Healing Art, fifth edition, ~ 187 -203.



132


a sulphur ointment, with a view, as they suppose, of
helping him speedily. Only in military barracks, in
prisons, hospitals, orphan asylums, the patients are
obliged to apply to the physician, provided the surgeon
of the establishment does not forestall him.
Even in the remotest ages, sulphur was looked upon
as a specific against the itch; for the psoric miasm did
not, in every instance, form leprosy; but it was used
only as an external remedy. A. C. Celsus, (V. 28,)
proposes several kinds of grease and ointment by means
of which he imagines the itch may be cured. One of
those ointments is made of sulphur mixed with tar; others contain copper. The oldest physicians already used
warm sulphur baths against the itch, as is the custom
now.   The eruption generally disappeared by these
means. But subsequent ailments showed already then
that the patients did not always recover. An Athenian,
for instance, was attacked with anasarca on account of
having removed his itch by using the warm  sulphur
baths upon the island of Melos, (now Milo.) He died
of this disease 300 years before Celsus, as is reported
by the author of the fifth book Epidemion, which is considered due to Hippocrates.
Sulphur was never given internally, for the simple
reason that neither the older nor the modern physicians
understand that the itch is chiefly an internal disease.
Modern physicians, too, never give sulphur only internally, because they do not regard the itch chiefly as
an internal disease. They give sulphur internally, as
a mere adjuvans of the external ointments, in frequently
repeated doses of 10, 20, 30 grains, purging the patient
and making it impossible to determine how far this excessive internal use of sulphur had been either hurtful
or useful; at least it was impossible that the whole psoric disease should ever be thoroughly cured by this
treatment. The only object which was obtained by
giving the sulphur as a purgative, was to facilitate the
removal of the external eruption; but this removal was
just as pernicious as when no sulphur at all had been



133


taken internally. Such excessive doses of sulphur* can
never thoroughly cure a psoric disease, even though no
ointment should have been used at all. Such excessive
doses rouse the vital principle into a hostile attitude, and
cause it to reject the sulphur altogether without having
appropriated to itself the curative virtue of the drug; in
some cases they even increase the disease or excite an altogether new disease in the system. The itch can only
be cured by the homceopathic preparation of sulphur.
Since experience teaches that the itch, even the recently formed itch, with the eruption existing upon the
skin, cannot be cured by sulphur ointments used in
combination with large quantities of sulphur taken internally, it may easily be conceived that, when the eruption has been thus violently removed from the skin, and
the psoric disease has already pervaded all the recesses
* It may not be amiss to quote here, by way of illustration, the words of an impartial and profound savant and indefatigable inquirer, Count Buquoy, who is practically acquainted with Homceopathy. We find them recorded in
his " Anregungen fir phil. wissens. Forschung." (Leipsic,
1825, p. 386. and f.) Having first supposed that the pa.
thogenetic symptoms of a remedy a, b, g, have received
into themselves the symptoms exhibited by the disease,
which we will designate A, B, V, and have impressed upon
them the character of the medicinal symptoms, the character of mutability, perishability, etc., he continues in this
way: "The medicinal symptoms, a, b, g, which have received into themselves the symptoms of the disease, A, B,
V, easily pass off on account of the extremely small dose
which has produced them. If the homoeopathic physician
gives too large a dose, the natural morbid symptoms A, B,
V, may indeed be changed to the medicinal symptoms a,
b, g; but the new disease is now just as firmly rooted as
the primitive disease was; hence the organism finds it
just as difficult to free itself from the new disease as it did
to free itself from the primitive. If a very large dose is
given, a new, often life.endangering disease is formed, or
else the organism tries with all its might to free itself from
the poison by means of diarrhoea, vomiting, etc."
6



134 -


of the organism in the form of secondary chronic affections, these can much less be cured by powders of sulphur, by sulphur baths, by drinking sulphuretted mineral
water, or any other water of this kind; in short, by the
excessive use and repetition of sulphur, though it be a
specific remedy against the itch.* It is indeed true,
that many patients appear to be freed, for a time, from
the original.psoric affection by the use of sulphur baths,
(hence the nultitude of patients affected with all sorts
of chronic affections, who flock to the baths of Teplitz,
Baden, Aix-la-Chapelle, Neundorf, Warmbrunn, etc.;)
but they are not cured for all that; the sulphur may
have occasioned a medicinal disease, which, for a time,
may take the place of the natural disease, and is much
less troublesome than this one; but tile medicinal disease soon passing off again, the original disease returns,
either with its original or with new and more troublesome symptoms, sometimes affecting the more delicate
parts of the organism. The ignorant physician, on perceiving this change, rejoices at the primitive group of
symptoms having, as he supposes, given place to a new
disease, and persuades the patient that the renewed use
of the baths will cure this new disease as well as it did
the former; he knows not that this new disease is a
mere modification of the former symptoms, and is
doomed to witness the sad result that the patient obtains
much less relief from using the baths a second time,
yea, that the repeated use of those baths positively aggravates the sufferings of the patient.
I may, therefore, positively assert, that sulphur has
done much injury in the hands of allceopathic physicians; and that excessive use and frequent repetition
* Sulphur, when administered in a small dose, seldom
fails in effecting an incipient cure of the chronic non-venereal
diseases. I know a physician in Saxony who obtained a
great reputation for curing chronic diseases, by adding, without knowing why, flowers of sulphur to every one of his
prescriptions. In the beginning, they produced a good
effect, but only in the beginning, for, in a little while, the
good effects ceased.



135


have made this drug almost useless for the homaoopathic physician in the treatment of those endless secondary psoric affections, for the cure of which alloeopathic doctors had employed it in vain.
In all those mismanaged cases of psoric diseases,
sulphur will be much less useful to the homoeopathic
physician than it is in a recently formed itch, with the
eruption still existing upon the skin. Sulphur will indeed show a curative effect, whether the psoric disease
after the violent suppression of the eruption, be still
slumbering in the system, or whether it have already
broke forth in the shape of all sorts of secondary chronic
affections; but it can only be rarely exhibited in those
mismanaged cases, on account of its virtues having been
already misused by the allceopathic physicians; whereas, sulphur, and, indeed, most other antipsoric remedies,
should nqver be given more than three or four times,
even with suitable intermediate remedies, if the physician does not wish the cure to retrograde in consequence
of the too frequent use of that powerful antipsoric.
SWhether the violent suppression of the eruption have
forced the internal psora to manifest itself in the form
of secondary chronic affections, or whether it be still
slumbering in the system, sulphur alone is never suficient to effect the cure of such a psoric disturbance.
Hence it is, that sulphur baths, either natural or artificial, are of no avail in the treatment of such secondary
psoric affections.
I repeat that, (with the exception of a recently formed itch with the eruption still existing upon the skin,)*
every other psoric disturbance of the organism, whether
the psora be yet in a latent condition or whether it have
already assumed the various forms of secondary chronic
affections, can never be cured by one antipsoric reme* Recent itch, with the eruption, has often yielded to one
small dose of homoeopathically prepared sulphur in the space of
2, 3 or 4 weeks. On one occasion such a cure was effected in a
family of seven persons by means of half a grain of the million
potency of carbo vegetabilis; and on three other occasions by
means of a like dose of the same potency of Sepia.



136
dy, but that complete and radical cure of such secondary psoric affections in bad cases, requires the use of a
large number of antipsorics.
The psoric miasm, having pervaded millions of organisms for thousands of years, has gradually developed out
of itself an endless number of symptoms, varied according to differences of constitution, climate, residence,
educatioii, habits, occupation,* mode of life, diet, and
various other bodily and spiritual influences. Hence it
cannot appear strange that not one antipsoric should be
sufficient to correspond to that endless number of different psoric symptoms, and that the use of several antipsoric remedies should be required for a complete and
radical removal of the psoric miasm.t
As I have said before, only the recent itch, with the
eruption still existing upon the skin, can be completely
cured by one dose of sulphur. I am not prepared to
assert that such a speedy cure is possible in every case;
the age of'the patient has a great influence upon the result of the treatment. When the eruption has already
existed for some time upon the skin and begins to disappear of itself, in that case the internal psora has already obtained preponderance in the system. The eruption now ceases, to a certain extent, to be a vicarious
symptom for the internal disease; and the signs of latent
psora or secondary psoric affections begin to manifest
themselves. In such a case as this, sulphur is no longer
sufficient to effect a cure; nor is any single antipsoric
remedy capable of producing that result; several antipsorics are required for that purpose, according as their
use is indicated by the existing symptoms.
* I mean occupations which exert a special influence upon
particular organs of the system, which affect certain functions of
the mind more than others.
"t I forbear indicating the great exertions, the innumerable and
careful observations, the inquiries, reflections and various experiments by means of which I have succeeded, after the lapse of
eleven years, in filling up that large chasm in the system of the
homaeopathic healing art, in indicating the cure of the countless
chronic diseases, and in thus completing, as much as possible,
the blessings which homceopathy has bestowed upon mankind.



137


THE homoeopathic treatment of the chronic non-venereal diseases generally accords with what has been
taught in the Organon of the healing art, relatively to the
treatment of acute diseases. The particular rules to be
observed in the treatment of chronic diseases I shall
now point out.
In regard to diet and mode of life I shall only give
general directions, which the physician will have to apply in a special case according to his own discretion.
Of course, whatever is injurious to the action of the
remedies, must be carefully avoided. However, it will
sometimes be necessary to modify, more or less, the
dietetic rules which homceopathy enjoins upon the patient vith so much strictness and emphasis; this modification must especially take place when we have to
treat lingering diseases which often last for a long time,
and when it becomes necessary for the physician to consider the age, the occupation, and the social condition of
the patient.
Strict diet is not the curative agent in the treatment
of chronic diseases, as is asserted by the opponents of
homceopathy, with a view 'of lessening its merit; the
cure depends chiefly upon the medical treatment. This
is proved by the fact that many chronic patients have
followed, for years, the strictest diet without being able
to obtain relief; the disease increases, as is the case
with all chronic miasms.
In order to make the cure possible and practicable,
the homceopathic practitioner is, therefore, often obliged
to modify the severe diet prescribed by homceopathy.
By wisely yielding to circumstances the physician effects the cure more certainly and more perfectly than by
obstinately insisting upon a mode of life which it is impossible for the patient to follow.
If their strength permit, the journeyman ought to
continue his labour, the artizan work at his trade, the
farmer attend to his business in the fields, the housekeeper to her domestic concern; only that which is generally injurious to health, ought to be carefully avoided.



138


Persons whose business confines them to a room, and
obliges them to lead a sedentary life, ought to take as
much exercise as possible in the open air, without, however, totally abandoning their usual pursuits.
Rich patients must walk more than they usually do.
The physician may permit them moderate and proper
dancing, rural entertainments, provided they do not conflict with the necessary dietetic precautions, conversation with friends; he may also permit them innocent
music, and. listening to amusing lectures; they may
sometimes even go to the theatre, but they must never
play cards. The physician ought to lay restrictions
upon riding, either on horseback or in the carriage, and
to interdict all exciting intercourse; for, bad moral effects re-act upon the body. All amorous intercourse
and sensual excitement, reading lewd novels, and superstitious or exciting books, are to be carefully avoided.*
The literary man ought to take much exercise in the
open air, and, in bad weather, do some light mechanical
work in the house. While the treatment lasts, he
ought to limit his intellectual labour to writing essays
of his own composition; reading ought either never to
be permitted, or, at any rate, the quality and quantity
SSome physicians are apt to give themselves importance
by interdicting all sexual intercourse to married chronic
patients. If both parties are capable of enjoying it, such
an interdiction is, to say the least of it, ridiculous; for, in
this case, the interdiction neither can be nor will be obeyed;
otherwise a great family misfortune might come out of it.
No laws should be passed which cannot be kept, or the observation of which would induce greater mischief than that
which they were intended to prevent. In case one of the
parties should be incapable of sexual intercourse, the interdiction becomes useless. Sexual intercourse is a thing
which can neither be properly recommended nor interdicted. All that homceopathy ought to do in regard to sexual
intercourse, is, to enable the parties to enjoy it (either by
antipsoric or antisyphilitic remedies,) and to restore the
morbidly excited desire of either party to its natural tone.



139


of the reading matter ought to.be carefully indicated.
In mental diseases, reading is to be positively forbidden.
"Chronic patients of all classes must carefully avoid
the arbitrary use of domestic remedies, or of intermediate medicines of any kind; patients of the higher
classes must carefully abstain from perfumes, scented
water, tooth powders, etc. If the patient is accustomed
to wear wool over the bare skin, he may continue to do
so; but in proportion as the cure progresses, and the
weather becomes warmer, cotton, and finally line-n
ought to be substituted.  Fontanels, in important
chronic diseases, should only be discontinued when the
cure has already been progressing for some time. This
remark is especially applicable to patients advanced in
age.
Baths have to be discontinued; ablutions may be
substituted in their stead; they may be used for the
sake of cleanliness. Bleeding and cupping must be
strictly forbidden, no matter how much the patient may
have been accustomed to such depletions.
In regard to diet, I may observe, that men of all
classes may consent to impose some restrictions upon
themselves, in order to be freed from a troublesome
chronic disease. If the abdomen is not the chief seat
of the chronic disease, in this case, all severe restrictions
may be dispensed with, especially among the lower
classes, and when the patient is capable of taking the
necessary exercise by working at his trade. The poor
may live on bread and salt, and yet recover from his
disease by proper treatment; he may safely eat potatoes, boiled flour and fresh cheese, (moderately, of
course;) but onions and pepper, he ought to use in a
limited quantity.
He who cares for his health may, even at the
king's table, find something which will abundantly satisfy a moderate and natural appetite.
What is the most difficult part of the treatment, is to
regulate the drinks of the patient. Coffee has pernicious effects upon both body and soul; they may be
found enumerated in my little work, (Wirkungen des



140


Kaffees, Leipsic, 1803.) Unfortunately coffee has become so necessary to the so-called civilized nations
that, unless the homceopathic physician interdicts the
use of coffee once for ever during the treatment, he will
find it just as difficult to abolish the use of that beverage as it is difficult to eradicate superstition and prejudice. Young people of twenty and even thirty years, may
be deprived of it at once, without any injury. Persons of
a more advanced age ought to be persuaded to abstain
from the use of coffee little by little, taking a little less
of it every day; most of them will be found willing to
leave off the use of that beverage at once, and they do
so without experiencing any disagreeable consequences,
except perhaps for the first two or three days. Even as
late as six years ago I was under the impression that
coffee might be permitted, in a small quantity, to old
people, in case they should find it difficult to give it up.
But I am now convinced that the protracted use of coffee does not make it harmless, and that the physician
who is bound to take. care of the best interests of his
patients, ought to insist upon their depriving themselves
of coffee altogether. If they have the necessary confidence in their physician, they will all conform to his
reasonable wishes with great readiness. Roast rye or
wheat smell and taste very much like coffee, and procure a beverage which is now much used by both rich
and poor people in different countries.
The same criticism may be passed upon Chinese tea.
Both the coarser and the finer kinds of this beverage
are alluring to the taste and secretly and infallibly
weaken the nerves. Tea, whether it be weak or strong,
and whether it be taken by young or old people, were
it only once a day, is always more or less injurious, and
ought, therefore, to be avoided during the treatment of
chronic diseases. I have constantly found that also in
regard to tea, the wishes of an intelligent and respected
physician are at once obeyed.
Wine needs not to be completely interdicted to chronic patients. Old people cannot well be suddenly and
completely deprived of wine, especially if they have



142


The use of beer is liable to many restrictions,
Brewers are now-a-days too much in the habit of mixing with the beer all sorts of vegetable substances, partly to preserve it from turning sour, partly and especially
to tickle the palate, and to produce an intoxicating effect. Those substances are injurious to health. The
different kinds of ale, though they contain a diminished
quantity of malt, are also mixed with narcotic substances
for the purpose of producing an intoxicating effect.
The use of acetic and citric acid is likewise to be
prohibited. Vinegar and lemon juice are especially
hurtful to those who are affected with nervous and abdominal complaints; moreover, those substances either
neutralize or increase the effects of certain remedies.
Sour fruit, such as sour cherries, unripe gooseberries,
currants, ought to be used only in very small quantities;
sweet fruit may be used moderately; stewed prunes
should not be used by those who are inclined to constipation. Young veal ought not to be used by those
whose digestive organs are affected. Those whose generative powers are weakened, must moderate themselves in the use of chickens or eggs, and must avoid
vanilla, truffles, caviare, all of which act as palliatives.
From this last reason women whose menses flow too
scantily, must avoid using saffron and cinnamon. Dyspeptic persons have to avoid cinnamon, cloves, ammonium, pepper, ginger, and bitters; all these substances
act as palliatives and are injurious to homceopathic
medicines. Flatuous vegetables of all kinds ought to
be avoided by those who are inclined to constipation and
difficulty of passing their stools. Beef, wheat and ryebread, cow's milk, and a moderate quantity of fresh butter
appear to be the most natural and the most harmless
food for man, hence also for chronic patients. These
substances ought not to contain much salt. Next to
beef may be ranked mutton, game, old chickens, young
pigeons; goose and duck are yet less admissible to chronic patients than pork. Salt and smoked meat must
be used with great moderation.



143


Raw chopped herbs, spices and old rancid cheese are
to be carefully avoided.
Fish ought to be used boiled, not too much of it,
without any spiced sauces; no smoked fish or such as
has been dried in the air; herrings and sardines in
moderate quantity.
Moderation in eating and drinking is a sacred duty
for all chronic patients.. Tobacco may be permitted in some chronic diseases
to patients who have constantly used tobacco, and who
do not spit in using it. However, restrictions are to be
imposed when the intellectual functions are affected,
when the patient does not sleep well, is dyspectic and
constipated. When there is opening of the bowels
every time the tobacco is used, this is an additional
reason why its use should be prohibited, and why suitable antipsorics should be employed towards removing the
constipation entirely. The use of snuff against habitual
catarrh, obstruction of the nose and chronic inflammation
of the eyes is a great obstacle to the cure of chronic
diseases; it, therefore, ought to be gradually abolished
as soon as possible. There is another reason why the
use of snuff should be interdicted. The medicinal preparations with which the snuff is moistened injure the olfactory nerve with which they are brought in immediate
contact; this the smoking of tobacco is much less able to
do on account of its virtues being considerably diminished by the fire.
There are other obstacles to the cure of chronic diseases which I shall now enumerate.
Those events which are capable of rousing the latent
psora which has hitherto manifested its existence in ihe
organism by some of those slight deviations from its
normal condition that have been enumerated above, are
also capable, if they should attack a patient in whom
the chronic disease is fully developed, to make its cure
difficult and even impossible, unless they speedily yield
to more favourable circumstances.
These events being different in their nature, they are
injurious in different degrees.



144


Excessive fatigue, working in marshy regions, great
injuries and wounds, excessive heat or cold, starvation,
poverty, unwholesome food are less capable of rousing
latent psora or aggravating a manifest psoric disease
than an unhappy marriage or a gnawing conscience.
Yes, ten years of hard labour in the penitentiary is
much less injurious to the health of an innocent man
than spiritual sufferings. The psoric miasm, which had
been hitherto latent in his system and gave the favorite
of a king the appearance of blooming health, quickly
breaks forth into a chronic affection or induces a state
of insanity, when contempt and indigence are substituted
in the place of his former brilliant position. The psoric
mother whose health had already been vacillating, is
attacked with an incurable suppuration of the lungs or
with a cancer of the breast in consequence of the sudden
death of her only son; disdained love induces a state
of melancholy in the sensitive young woman, who had
been affected with psoric hysteria.
In such cases, even the best antipsoric treatment is
scarcely capable of procuring relief to those unfortunate patients.
Grief and sorrow are the principal causes which
either develop latent psora, or aggravate an already existing secondary psoric affection.
Even the least remains of the psoric miasm are by
permanent grief and vexation developed into all sorts
of chronic psoric affections; grief and vexation act
more certainly, more frequently, and more suddenly
than any other contrary influences could do.
The physician ought to make it his duty and his delight to remove from the patient all those influences
that might be an obstacle to the cure, and especially in
the case of chronic patients, he ought to shield them,
to the best of his ability, against grief and vexation.
If both philosophy and religion should forsake the
patient; if the patient is not capable of bearing with
resignation the sufferings and tribulations which may
befal him without his fault; if the patient is constantly
assailed by grief and vexation without the physician



145
being able to ward off those pernicious influences, then
it is better that the patient should be left to his fate;"
for even the wisest, most skilful, and most conscientious physician will find it impossible to procure the patient relief under those unfavourable circumstances. It
would be foolish to continue the construction of an edifice upon a ground which is every day undermined by
the waves slowly washing away one portion after the
other.
There is another class of chronic patients whose affections are just as difficult to cure. They are those
patients among the higher classes, who have used for
years mineral baths,t and have resorted to those boasted methods of cure and nostra which are sent over the
whole world from France and England. These nostra
being taken in repeated doses, develop the psoric miasm,
even when uncombined with syphilis, so irresistibly,
and aggravate the secondary psoric affections to such
an extent, that those inroads upon the vital powers of
the organism, if they should be continued for some
years, make the cure of chronic affections impossible.
Why this should be so, is difficult to say. It, may be
presumed that new affections have been added to the original malady by means of those heroic non-homoeopathic
remedies, and that the magnitude and frequent repetition of these remedies have impressed upon those affections the character of ohronic permanency. Or,
the different powers of organic life, irritability, sensibility, the faculty of reproduction may have become so
This grief may be a symptom of the general disease
without being occasioned by external influences. In this
case, regard must be had to this symptom in the selection
of an antipsoric. Such morbid states of the mind are sometimes cured with great ease.
t Even if the water itself is not contrary to the disease;
nevertheless, the frequent use of baths must be considered
a repetition of powerful doses, which often exercise a
-pernicious effect upon the disease, and very seldom do
much good.



146


much weakened by this abuse, that all those causes
united may have produced a disturbance which no sensible man will consider elementary; and no homceopathic physician will lightly undertake to regulate the
chaos of sufferings which is exhibited in such wofully
misused organisms.
Such violent and exhausting modes of treatment are
not only incapable of curing the primitive psoric disease, but they aggravate it by producing dangerous medicinal affections, and finally threaten to overwhelm the
vital powers altogether.
If the pernicious effects of the old method of cure
merely resulted in dynamic derangements of the organism, the organism would soon recover from those effects,
after the treatment should have been discontinued for a
time, or else homoeopathic remedies would be able to
neutralize those bad effects. But these effects never
disappear. It is probable that the sensible and irritable
fibre is unnaturally affected by the large and frequently
repeated doses of allaeopathic medicines, and that the
vital principle protects itself against their destructive
agency, either by modifying or changing the viscera
of organic life in such a manner as will effectually
shield them against the assaults of subversive remedial
agents. It is for a purpose like this, for instance, that
the vital powers cover the delicate skin of the hand
with a horny surface, in order to protect that part of the
body against the bad effects which it might otherwise
suffer from the contact with corrosive or otherwise injurious substances. In the same way, if the delicate
viscera of organic life are assailed by medicines which
are not in homoeopathic relation with the disease, those
viscera are protected by the vital principle by having
their sensibility and irritability diminished. Moreover,
the more delicate fibre is found abnormally thickened
or hardened; the stronger fibre, on the contrary,
consumed or even annihilated, as is shown by the adventitious, irregular, or degenerate formations  or
growths which post-mortem examinations exhibit to us,
and which are then attributed to the malignant charac



147


ter of the primitive disease. Such a crippled condition
of things occurs very often, and is, in many cases, incurable. Only in patients who are not too far advanced in age, and whose powers have not been too deeply
sunk by the destructive drugs of alloeopathic physicians,
as is unfortunately almost always the case, the careful and intelligent homoeopathic physician may succeed
in restoring the original health of the patient. But
such a result can only be obtained under the most favourable external circumstances. When these occur
and are maintained, the physician may enable the vital
principle, by disembarrassing it first from the influences
of the psoric miasm, to gradually remove the degenerations which the unnatural doses of the alloeopathic doctor
had forced the vital powers to form for the sake of preserving the system from utter ruin. Daily experience
proves the fact that the system sinks more and more, in
proportion as the allceopathic physician, even if he should
proceed with attention and care, assails it with his drugs.
It is impossible that such mismanaged cases should
be cured in a short time, by means of an art which has
never pretended to have it in its power directly to act
upon organic defects.
In these cases the physician has not to deal with a
simple psoric disease. These cases are often so complicated that the physician is obliged to abandon them
at once. But were they ever so favourable, he ought
never to promise more than relief after a long lapse of time.
The first thing to be done is, that the various medicinal
influences which undermine the system in all directions,
should be removed from the system. This result may
be obtained without the patient taking any new medicine, by going for a few months into the country, following a strict diet, and carefully regulating his mode
of life. Medicine can do almost nothing against these
chaotic devastations, of allaeopathic drugs. The vital
principle, aided perhaps by an antipsoric in some degree,
must first clear away all those artificial symptoms before the true image of the original disease is reproduced.*
SThe most horrible chronic diseases, such as may be



148


Wo to the homceopathic physician who means to
make his reputation by the cure of such wofully mismanaged diseases! He will fail in spite of all his
care.
An other obstacle to the cure of chronic diseases is
the enervation of the system consequent upon excesses. The sons of rich parents especially, carried
away by the allurements of wealth, are too much inclined to injure themselves by destructive passions, debauchery, abuse of the sexual organs, gambling, etc.
By the practice of these vices the robustest bodies often
dwindle down to a shadow; yea, the latent psora entering into combination with the badly managed syphilitic poison, this union gives origin to the most distressing disease. Even if the patient mends his ways,
remorse will constantly assail the vital forces and will
impede the action of the antipsoric remedies so much
that the homceopathic practitioner will have to be very
cautious in promising a successful treatment.
Among poor people, where the aforesaid obstacles do
not exist,* there are other difficulties in the way of a
successful treatment. Among the poor the infection
has generally been caught more than once and the cutaneous eruption has, as many times, been repelled by
external applications. By these means the internal psoric
found in the -families of poor peasants and mechanics,
whom no fashionable physician visits, are cured in the most
simple manner by antipsorics; the cure is often effected in
so short a time that it appears almost miraculous.
* A pretty frequent obstacle to the cure of chronic discases is " suppressed sexual intercourse." In some cases
this suppression does not depend upon the physician; in
other cases a foolish physician feels called upon to interdict
se.xual intercourse on account of the delicate health of one
of the parties. Such an interdiction often induces hysteria,
hypochondriasis and even frenzy. A sensible physician
will cure these symptoms by permitting the moderate enjoyment of sexual intercourse. This subject deserves
much more attention than is generally bestowed upon it.



149


disease has gradually assumed a fearful character. Bat
even in these cases a cure is possible in the course of
time, provided the patients are not too far advanced in
age, and are docile and not too much exhausted.
But even in those difficult cases kind nature shows a
disposition to facilitate the cure, provided we know how
to understand and profit by her indications. Experience
teaches this important fact that, though the patient have
caught the itch several times in succession, and though
the- psoric miasm have subdued the organism more
completely now than during the first attack, yet the
last infection may be cured as easily as if it were the first,
provided the eruption still exist upon the skin in its integrity. By means of one or two doses of the suitable
antipsoric remedy, the psoric.miasm may be removed
from the system, and all secondary chronic affections
may be effectually prevented.*
It would not be exped.ient, however, to favour the
cure of psoric chronic affections by repeatedly producing an artificial infection of the patient by. means of
the psoric virus, even though the patient should not
dread such a course, although he often does reject it.
The psoric miasm rarely takes effect in patients afflicted with inveterate psoric diseases, such as suppuration of the lungs, paralysis of one or more parts
of the body, etc. I may observe that the psoric miasm
takes effect much sooner when it is caught naturally,
than when it is communicated by artificial inoculation.
I have little else to say, relatively to the treatment of
chronic diseases; I content myself with referring the in* This is also the case with syphilis. Suppose the
chancre or bubo have been violently suppressed and secondary syphilis has made its appearance. Suppose now that
the patient has caught the syphilitic infection a second time;
in this case as long as the chancre is yet existing, the syphilitic disease is cured by one dose of the best mercurial
preparation. Of course, there must not be any complication
with psora; if this should be the case, the psoric affection
must be removed first, as has been taught above.



150


telligent homoeopathic physician to the list of antipsoric
remedies which he will find recorded at the end of this
volume, and which he may use with advantage for the
attainment of his noble ends. A few rules of precaution
may, however, not be amiss.
First, let me recall to mind the great truth, that most
chronic diseases, excepting however those few diseases
which spring from syphilis, originate in psora, and can,
therefore, only be cured by antipsoric remedies, that is
to say, remedies which produce, in a healthy organism,
all those symptoms which characterise both latent and
developed psora.
It is for this reason that the homceopathic physician
should not pay any attention to the names which he
finds arrayed in. works on pathology, and that he should
above all, study the symptoms, and select a remedy in
harmony with them.
The physician must be on-his guard against interrupting the action of the antipsoric remedy which he has
given to the patient; let him not exhibit an intermediate
remedy, on account of a little headache which may perhaps come the day after the antipsoric remedy was
given; or another remedy for a sore throat, or diarrhoea, or a little pain, etc.
The rule is, that the carefully selected homceopathic
remedy should act until it has completed its effect.
Suppose the remedy calls out symptoms which have
existed already weeks or months ago; in this case, the
apparent aggravation and the development of new symptoms show that the remedy has attacked the disease in
its inmost nature, and will prove of great use hereafter.
Therefore, the remedy ought to be left undisturbed.
But, if the remedy produces symptoms which had
never been witnessed before, and which may, therefore,
be supposed to be inherent in the medicine; in that
case, the remedy should be permitted to act for a while;
generally those symptoms disappear of themselves without retarding the course adopted by the physician; but
if they are troublesome and important, they ought not
to be tolerated; they show that the homceopathic reme



155


agent, acting as it does for a long period, should occa
sionally appear to make a sort of inroad upon the organism. Such exacerbations are only apparent aggravations of the disease. They simply show that the disease is writhing, as it were, under the action of the
remedy,* and may occur even 16, 20, or 24 days after
the period when the medicine was taken.
The duration of the action of anti-psoric remedies is
generally proportionate.to the chronic character of the
disease. And, vice-versa, even such remedies as belladonna, sulphur, arsenic, etc., which act for a considerable length of time in the healthy organism, have the
duration of their action diminished in proportion as the
disease is acute and runs speedily through its course.
In chronic diseases the physician will therefore let the
remedy act 30, 40, and even 50 days, as long as the
improvement continues. Nature permits the remedy
to act for so many days; and, as long as this action
continues, it ought not to be interfered with by a new
remedy.t
* If the anti-psoric remedy have been chosen with strict
regard to its homceopathic nature, and have been exhibited
in the smallest dose, such exacerbations will progressively
diminish both in frequency and intensity; whereas, if the
dose is too strong, they may appear very often to the great
prejudice of thp patient.
t It will be difficult to induce physicians to avoid the mistakes which have been censured in these paragraphs. My
doctrines in regard to the magnitude and the repetition of
the doses will be doubted for years, even by the greater
number of homceopathic physicians. Their excuse will be,
" that it is quite difficult enough to believe that the minute
homoeopathic doses have 'at all the power to act upon the
disease, but that it is incredible that such small doses should
be able to influence an inveterate chronic disease even for
two or three, much liss for forty or fifty days; yea, that,
after so long a space of time, important results should be
obtained from those imperceptible doses." My proposition,
however, is not one of those which ought to be compre



156
The whole cure fails if the anti-psoric remedies
which have been prescribed for the patient, are not perhended, nor one which ought to be blindly believed. No
one is bound either to comprehend or believe that proposition; I do not comprehend it, but the facts speak for
themselves. The truth of my proposition is demonstrated
by experience, in which I have more faith than in my intelligence. Who will undertake to weigh 4,e powers which
nature conceals in her depths? Who will doubt of their
existence? Who ever thought that the medicinal virtues
of drugs could be developed in an infinite series of degrees
by means of triturating and shaking the raw material?
Does the physician risk any thing by imitating a method
which I have adopted from long experience and observation? Unldess the physician imitates my method, he cannot
expect to solve the highest problem of medical science, that
of curing those important chronic diseases which have indeed
remained uncured up to the time when I discovered their
true character, and proper treatment. This is all that I
have to say on this subject. I have fulfilled a duty by
communicating to the world the great truths which I have
discovered. The world was sadly in need of them. If
physicians do not carefully practice what I teach, let them
not boast of being my followers, and, above all, let them
not expect to be successful in their treatment.
Is it proper that we should reject a method of cure until
the play of those natural forces upon which the method
rests shall have been revealed to the sight and shall have
been made accessible to the minds of children? Would it
not be foolish to reject the practice of eliciting sparks from
flint by striking against it with steel, for no other reason
than this: that we do not understand how so much caloric
could be latent in the flint, or how this caloric after being
elicited from the flint, could melt'the little particles of steel
which separate from the steel when we strike it against the
flint, and, in the shape of incandescent globules, set the tinder on fire? We understand nothing of all this, and we
nevertheless have followed for thousands of years the practice
of eliciting sparks from flint by means of steel. It would
be foolish to decline learning to write because we do not



159


same remedy, or every new      dose of another remedy,
would produce an increase of morbid symptoms and
interrupt the process of cure. It often requires a long
time before so much mischief can be remedied.*
* NOTE OF THE TRANSLATOR: The explanation which Hahnemann gives of the modus operandi of the homceopathic drug, is
not satisfactory. With all due reverence for the great master of
Homoeopathy, I take the liberty of offering the following remarks relative to his explanation:In ~ 29 of his " Organon," Hahnemann says, in explanation of
the law similia similibus, " that every disease (which does not
belong exclusively to surgery) being a purely dynamic and peculiar change of the vital powers in regard to the manner in
which they accomplish sensation and action, a change that expresses itself by symptoms which are perceptible to the senses,
it therefore follows, that the homoeopathic medicinal agent, selected by a skilful physician, will convert it into another medicinal disease which is analogous, but rather more intense. By
this means, the natural morbific power which had previously existed, and which was nothing more than a dynamic power without
substance, terminates, while the medicinal disease which usurps
its place, being of such a nature as to be easily subdued by the
vital powers, is likewise extinguished in its turn, leaving in its
primitive state of integrity and health the essence or substance
which animates and preserves the body."
What is meant by " terminates," may be easily and clearly
inferred from ~ 45 of the Organon, where Hahnemann discourses
as follows: " Two diseases that differ greatly in their species,
but which bear a strong resemblance in their development
and effects-that is to say, in the symptoms which they produce, always mutually destroy each other when they meet
together in the system. The stronger annihilates the -weaker;
nor is it difficult to conceive how this is performed. Two dissimilar diseases may co-exist in the body, because their dissimilitude would allow of their occupying two distinct regions.
But, in the present case, the stronger disease which makes its
appearance, exercises an influence upon the same parts as the
old one, and even throws itself, in preference, upon those which
have till now been attacked by the latter, so that the old disease
finding no other organ to act upon, is necessarily extinguished.
Or, to express it in other terms, as soon as the vital powers,
which have till then been deranged by a morbific cause, are attacked with greater energy by a new power very analogous to
the former, but more intense, they no longer receive any impression but from the latter; while the preceding one, reduced to



159


If any given dose of a remedy should produce symptoms which are not homogeneous to the symptoms of
a mere state of dynamic power, without matter, must cease to
exist.
In the preceding paragraph it is distinctly stated that the artificial disease cures the natural, on account of the former being
stronger than the latter; and it is also said that the natural disease
reduced to a mere state of dynamic power without matter must
cease to exist.
The former of these assertions is too equivocal to be of any
scientific value. If the natural disease has been powerful
enough to reduce the organism to the last stage of vitality, how
can we suppose, that a subversive agent which develops in the
system a disease more powerful than the former, will not completely destroy the organism? Nor is the latter of those propositions more intelligible. How can a thing which continues to
be a " dynamic power" cease to exist  How can any thing
which is   power" cease to exist  Such explanations have
given rise on the part of the opponents of the homceopathic system
to objections like these: To cure a burn, you must burn the
limb a little more; to cure a simple fracture, you must make it
compound. To be sure, such objections are absurd; but they
are justified by the incompleteness of Hahnemann's own explanations of his theory.
Hahnehmann seems to entertain the notion which many other
physiologists, especially the vitalists, advocate, that the remedial agent acts by making an impression upon the vital
powers, and causing them to re-act by an increase of depression
within conservative limits. This explanation is plausible, but
not sufficient; indeed, it is only the smallest portion of the true
explanation of the homceopathic method of cure. In my inaugural thesis, published by Mr. Radde, 322 Broadway, I have indicated the true reasons why the homoeopathic remedy should
exercise such a great influence upon the disease. The reasons
which I have stated there, do, by no means, explain the inmost
agency of the homceopathic drug; but they constitute, and will
for ever constitute, the immoveable basis upon which the mysterious workings of the homeopathic remedial agent have to be
investigated and explained. In my thesis I have demonstrated
that every homoeopathic cure is a materialisation of that abnormal
vital state which we call disease; that the homeopathic remedy
acts by reducing the disease to its own natural order or form of
existence, which is the medicinal substance; and that the disease leaves the organism by a compound force, first by virtue of
the irresistibly attractive power which the medicinal substance
exercises over the disease and by the consequent restoration of
free agency imparted to the vital principle. Hence, in the ho



160


the disease, and if the mind of the patient should become
more and more depressed, though the progressive increase of this depression may be very gradual, then the
next dose of the same remedy may become very prejudicial to the patient.. Even if a remedy should produce
a sudden great improvement in the condition of the patient, there is danger that the remedy may have acted
as a mere palliative; in this case it never should be exhibited a second time, not even after other intermediate
remedies.
There are.exceptions to this rule, which it is, however, not the business of every beginner to discover."
A second dose of the same remedy may be given immediately after the first, when the remedy had been
chosen with strict regard to its homceopathic character,
and had produced a good effect, but had not acted long
mceopathic process of curing there is no forcing, the disease
leaves the organism of its own accord, in perfect freedom, ftr the
simple reason that the human organism is not its natural order
of existence, and that the medicinal substance is this order.
Nor is the disease annihilated. On the contrary, it is developed
by the medicinal substance into its ultimate type; it is upon an
ultimate physical type that all intellectual, spiritual and vital
states of existence rest, whether they be normal or abnormal;
the ultimate types of all abnormal vital states of existence are the
medicinal substances.
"* Nevertheless, the immediate repetition of the doses of
one and the same remedy, has been much abused lately.
The young homoeopathic physician finds it convenient to
resort to this repetition, especially when the remedy has produced some good effects in the beginning; he imagines to
hasten the cure by this repetition.
It is the practice with many homeopathic physicians to
furnish the patient with several doses of the same remedy,
advising him to take them at certain intervals according to
his discretion. This is empiricism. The honoeopathic
physician ought to examine the symptoms every time he
prescribes; otherwise he cannot know whether the same
remedy is indicated a second time, or whether a medicine
is at all appropriate.



161


enough to cure the disease. This occurs but seldom in
chronic diseases; but it frequently occurs in acute diseases, and in those chronic diseases that border upon
the acute. The same remedy may be given a second
time, " when the improvement which the first dose had
produced by causing the morbid symptoms gradually to
become less frequent and less/intense, ceases to continue
after the lapse of fourteen, ten, or seven days; when it
becomes, therefore, evident that the medicine has ceased
to act, the condition of the mind is the same as before,
and no new or troublesome symptoms have made their
appearance. All this would show that the same remedy
is again indicated."
To secure the second dose a stronger action upon the
disease,* it would be expedient to exhibit the same remedy in a lower potency, the dose being of the same magnitude.t By way of example, I may state that the eruption of the itch is one of those diseases which admit more
readily than other diseases of an immediate repetition -
of the remedy, (sulphur,) but only when the eruption is
quite recent; for, in this case, it has somewhat the nature
* If the remedy is perfectly homoeopathic, it may be dissolved in about four ounces of water, by stirring it; onethird of this solution is taken immediately, the second
third in the morning on rising, and the last third the
next day;, the solution may be stirred at each swallow,
by which means the inherent power of the drug becomes
more developed.  This mode of exhibiting the remedy
seems to secure it greater supremacy over the organism, in
persons that are not too irritable or weak.
t If the 30th degree have been chosen first, the 18th
may be used next; then the 24th, after this the 12th, or
6th, etc.; these lower degrees are chosen when the chronic
disease has assumed an acute character. It may also occur
that the action of the remedy has been interrupted, and
perhaps destroyed, by some important transgression of the
dietetic rules, or some other cause; in this case, if the
above-nanied conditions are fulfilled, the same remedy may
be repeated.



163


patient is dear to him. The practitioner cannot be sufficiently on his guard against this practice.
By mismanagement like this, the patient's system becomes so irritated that remedial agents seem to lose all
their power over it,* and that the least medicinal influence is sufficient to extinguish completely the last spark
of irritability. Under these circumstances medicines
cease to be useful.; but mesmeric action may succeed in
calming the system.  Let the palm of both your hands
rest for about a minute upon the vertex; then move
them slowly down the body, across the neck, shoulders,
arms, hands, knees, legs, feet, and toes. This pass may
be repeated.
Beside these passes, the irritability of the patient may
also be soothed by directing him to smell of a globule
moistened with the highest potency of the homomopathic
remedy. This globule is kept in a corked vial, the mouth
of which being inserted in one of the nares, the patient
takes one quick inspiration.t By smelling of the medicine the influence of any medicine may be communicated
to the patient in any degree.  There may be one or
more globules in the vial. By increasing the number of
inspirations the power of the medicine may be increased
a hundred fold. The remedy acts just as powerfully by
communicating its medicinal influence to the system
through the nasal fossa and the lungs, as if a dose of the
remedy had been swallowed.
Such globules, when they are kept in corked vials, and
protected from heat and sunshine, often preserve their
* I have never seen a properly chosen homoeopathic remedy producing no effect, when the treatment is properly
conducted. Such a thing appears to me impossible.
t This mode of inspiring the imperceptible emanations
from the globule contained in the vial, benefits those who are
born without the sense of smell, or who had lost it, as much
as those who are endowed with the finest olfactory apparatus. We may infer from this that the general nerves of
sensation receive the impression of the remedial agent, and
transmit that impression to the whole nervous system.



medicinal power for years. This kind of smelling of
the remedy has great advantages in the many accidents
which often interrupt and prevent the cure. To neutralize the consequences of such accidents, the patient may
smell of the antidote. By this means it acts more powerfully upon the nerves, and affords the greatest use;
moreover, it does not establish any medicinal influence
in the system which might be in the way of a cure.
When the accident has been relieved by the process of
smelling, it often happens that the anti-psoric remedy,
which had been given before the accident occurred, continues to act for a certain time. To obtain this result
for certain, the inspirations and the number of the globules must be regulated with the greatest care, so as to
Sprevent any undue medicinal action being created in the
organism.
If the patient should wish to take medicine every day,"
* No popular habit, were it ever so injurious, can be abolished all at once. This is the reason why the homceopathic
physician cannot avoid giving to his patients a powder every
day; though this appears considerable, nevertheless, there
is a good deal of difference between this daily administration of a powder and the allceopathic practice. It is a
great blessing for the patient, in taking these powders,
marked with successive numbers, especially when he has
been predisposed against the more rational method of cure
by the artful insinuations of calumniators, not to be able to
distinguish the powders containing the medicine from those
containing the pure sugar of milk. If he knew that the
medicine, of which he expects such brilliant results, is
contained in any particular powder, he would often be imposed upon by his fancy; he would imagine to experience
effects which he would set down as real, and he would be
in a constant state of excitement. By the system which I
propose, all these disagreeable consequences are avoided.
The patient, who knows from experience that he need not
expect any painful effects from the medicine he takes,
calmly observes the changes which are really going on in his
system, and reports to his physician facts, and not illusions.
By taking a powder every day, the patient will expect the



165


the homceopathic physician may give him every day a
dose of sugar of milk of about three grains, all these
powders being marked with successive numbers.*  The
sugar of milk is admirably adapted to this kind of innocent deception.t
If the most troublesome symptoms of a chronic disease, such as old, constant, acute pains, spasms or
same effects from each. Of course, he ought not to know
whether any or all of the powders contain medicine.
"* Patients who have firm confidence in the honesty and
skill of their physician, will have no hesitation to be satisfied
with a dose of sugar of milk, which may be exhibited every
two, four, or seven days, agreeably to the wishes of the pa.
tient; such a course will never lessen their confidence.
t There are hypercritical homceopathic physicians who
were afraid that even the sugar of milk might obtain medicinal qualities from being long kept in a bottle, or from long
trituration. Long-continued experiments have convinced
me that this apprehension is unfounded. Both the raw and
the prepared sugar of milk may be taken as nourishment in
considerable quantity without the least disagreeable symptoms being experienced from it. Fears have also been entertained that, in triturating the medicinal substance in a
porcelain mortar, particles might become detached from this
latter, and that the triturating process might change them to
powerfully active silicea, (f.) To ascertain whether such
fears were founded, I caused one hundred grains of sugar of
milk to be triturated with a new porcelain pestle in a porcelain mortar, the bottom of which had been recently polished;
thirty-three grains were taken at a time. They underwent
the process of trituration eighteen times, each trituration lasting six minutes. Every four minutes the mass was stirred up
with a spatula. The object of this frequently repeated trituration, which lasted in all three hours, was to impart medicinal qualities, either to the sugar of milk, or, at any rate,
to the particles of silicea which might have been separated
from the mortar; but, from experiments which I have made
upon highly susceptible subjects, I have been obliged to infer
that the prepared sugar of milk is no more medicinal than
the sugar in its raw state; its only quality is that of being
nutritious.
7*



166


cramps, etc., disappear speedily and entirely, as if by
magic, to such a degree as to make the patient suppose
that he is entirely free from pain, and has almost recovered, this is no reason why the physician should flatter
himself, that he has chosen an anti-psoric which will cer"tainly promote the cure. This deceptive success shows
that the medicine has acted enantiopathically, as a mere
contrarium or palliative, and that a considerable exacerbation of the original disease will shortly show itself.
As soon as this exacerbation sets in, it becomes necessary either to give the antidote of the previous remedy,
or else, in case no such antidote should be known, to
prescribe a new remedy which will act more homceopathically.  Such antipathic medicines seldom produce good effects after an exacerbation has taken place.
Some medicines produce effects and counter-effects. In
this case, after an exacerbation has taken place, a second dose of the same remedy may be given, which,
by its antipathic action, will produce a permanent improvement. I know this to be the case with ignatia.
The exacerbation which is consequent upon an antipathic remedy, may sometimes be removed by means of
a remedy which may be chosen to that effect from the
materia medica, the archives of the homoeopathic art,
or the annals. In a few days, the psoric disease will
resume its original form, when a new anti-psoric may be
given.
The following are some of the accidents by which
the cure of chronic diseases may be temporarily disturbed: immoderate eating, the effects of which may
be remedied by eating thin broth and taking a little coffee; derangement of the stomach by eating fat meat,
especially pork, (cured by fasting and pulsatilla;) derangement of the stomach producing eructations tasting of the ingesta; nausea and inclination to vomit (by
the highest potency of antimonium crudum;) coldness
of the stomach, consequent upon eating fruit, (by smelling of arsenic;) troublesome consequences of using
spirituous drinks, (by nux vomica;) derangement of the
stomach with gastric fever, chills and coldness, (by bry



168


should be attached with such an epidemic or sporadic
disease, the anti-psoric treatment ought to be entirely suspended as long as that disease lasts; the cure of this disease may sometimes require several weeks. If the intermediate attack is not too violent,.the cure may sometimes
be considerably abbreviated by causing the patient to
smell of the homoeopathic non-anti-psoric remedy;
smelling is sometimes sufficient to produce recovery.
An intelligent homoeopathic practitioner will easily
observe the period when the intermediate. disease* has
* These intermediate diseases are generally fevers, a
continuous acute fever, a slow remittent, or an intermittent
fever; they may also be one of the permanent miasms,
small-pox, measles, dysentery, hooping-cough, etc. Intermittent fevers occur almost every year in a somewhat modified form. Ever since I discovered and practised the successful treatment of chronic diseases by means of antipsoric remedies, I have observed that intermittent fevers
appear every year in a more or less modified form both as
regards character and symptoms. The treatment had to
be varied accordingly. Arsenic, belladonna, antimonium
crudum, spigelia, aconite, nux in alternation with ipecacuanha, sal ammoniacum, natrum muriaticum, opium, cina,
either alone or in alternation with capsicum, or capsicum
only, menyanthes trifoliata, calcarea carbonica, pulsatilla,
carbo vegetabilis or animalis, arnica, or arnica in alter.
nation with ipecacuanha, etc., have been used in different
years, and effected a cure in a few days. I do not wish to
exclude any of the other non-anti-psoric remedies provided
they are indicated by the totality of the symptoms in the
beginning as well as in the apyrexia of the symptoms, (See:
Von B6nninghausen, Essay on the Homceopathic Treatment
of Intermittent Fevers, 1833, Moinster.) I should except,
however, cinchona. To suppress the type of an intermittent fever by means of cinchona, large doses of this drug
are required, even in its concentrated form, quinine; such
large doses establish in the system an artificial morbid
action which it is difficult to cure. Cinchona is only homoeopathic against theendemic intermittent fevers of marshy
regions; nevertheless they can only be cured by cinchona



169


left the patient, and the primitive chronic disease has
resumed its course.
It frequently happens that, after the intermediate disease' has left the patient, the symptoms of the original
chronic disease appear a little modified; sometimes
even other parts of the body manifest morbid symptoms.
In this case the homceopathic physician will prescribe
his remedy with strict regard to the existing symptoms,
and will not give a remedy which he may have imagined to be the proper remedy, before a careful examination had been instituted.
Sometimes the physician is called to a patient affected
with this intermediate disease, whom he had never
before treated as a chronic patient. The fever having
been subdued by those specific remedies which had
been found available with other patients, the physician
may nevertheless not be able to procure complete recovery in spite of the most regular diet and mode of
life. Other troublesome symptoms (generally called
after-symptoms, after-diseases) will appear and will
threaten to become chronic. These symptoms indicate
the development of an internal psoric disease, and have
to bt removed according to the principles taught in this
work.
in conjunction with the anti.psorics. In epidemic intermittent, fevers the treatment should always begin with a
dose of highly-dynamised sulphur, or hepar sulphuris, if this
remedy should be indicated. This medicine should be permitted to act until no farther improvement is observed.
In a few days after the sulphur had been administered, the
physician exhibits the non-anti-psoric remedy which is indicated by the character of the prevailing epidemic; one
or two doses may be exhibited, always after the termination
of the attack. Sulphur or hepar sulphuris are exhibited
before any other remedy is given, for this reason, that all
epidemic intermittent fevers chiefly owe their existence to
the psoric miasm. The previous action of sulphur or hepar
sulphuris makes the. subsequent treatment so much more
safe and easy.



170


I may here observe that the great epidemic diseases,
such as: small-pox, measles, purpura, scarlatina, hooping-cough, fall-dysentery, and other typhoid fevers, if
they are improperly treated, and are permitted to complete their course, shake the organism so thoroughly,
that the latent psoric miasm becomes roused in such
patients and gives origin to cutaneous eruptions,* or to
other chronic affections. Owing to the exhausted state
of the organism, they often reach a high degree of intensity in a short while. If the patient should then die
in spite of all the drugs which the allceopathic physician
gives him, the doctor declares that the patient has died
of the effects of hooping-cough, measles, etc.
These effects are nothing more than the visible consequences of the latent psoric miasm which may manifest itself in innumerable forms, and which never had
been cured on account of its nature and mode of action
having been unknown heretofore.
The physician may now feel convinced that epidemic
and sporadic fevers, as well as miasmatic acute diseases,
unless the patient recovers from both the diseases and
their effects in a short while, require an anti-psoric
after-treatment, even if a homoeopathic specific temedy should have been discovered and successfully employed against them. For this purpose the best antipsoric is sulphur. This may only be given in case the
patient should not have been put upon the use of that
drug previously. If this should have been the case, another anti-psoric must be selected.
* If these eruptions are numerous, authors call them
scabies spontanea, (self-originating itch.) This is a mere
chimera, a monstrum; the itch has originated, time out of
mind, in a contagious miasm, and cannot now originate
without being caught. The so-called scabies spontanea is
merely the secondary phenomenal development of the
internal psoric miasm, whose first manifestation upon the
skin had either been repelled by external applications or
had gradually disappeared of itself. This scabies spon.
tanea often leaves the skin again-very quickly; we know
not whether it is contagious.



173


of the public do, we should be very much mistaken.
For, little by little a new chronic disease is developed
out of the remaining portion of the psoric miasm, and
gradually conquers the organism.
The patient may legitimately expect that he should
be treated by any physician, especially, however, the
homoeopathic doctor, according to the principle of Celsus, (" tuto, cito et jucunde," (safely, speedily and agreeably.) This principle ought to hold good both in acute
diseases originating in occasional causes, as well as in
those periodical diseases which we designate by the
term intercurrent (morbi intercurrentes.)
As regards the short duration of the treatment of inveterate chronic diseases, this is made impossible by
the nature of the malady.*
A. great chronic disease may be cured in the space
of one or two years, provided it has not been mismanaged by allaoopathic treatment to the extent of having.
become incurable. One or two years ought to be considered a short treatment. In young robust persons
half this space of time is sufficient; in older people, on
the contrary, this period has to be considerably prolonged, in spite of the greatest care on the part of the
doctor, and the strictest obedience on the part of the
patient. If the patient consider that the psoric miasm,
which the doctor is called upon to cure, without, how-,
ever, affecting the organism, has gradually ramified into
its inmost recesses, then the patient will easily understand why the strictest mode of life on his own part,
and the greatest attention on the part of the doctor
should be required for a long period of time, in order to
* No one but an ignorant quack can promise to cure an
inveterate chronic disease in four or six weeks. He does
not consider himself bound to keep his word. He risks
nothing by making the disease worse by his treatment.
Can he lose any thing? Honour perhaps? Indeed not,
for his colleagues act like him. But conscience? Alas,
is not his conscience already lost?



174


master this parasitical enemy that had assailed the most
delicate roots of the tree of life.
If the anti-psoric treatment be properly conducted, the
strength of the patient ought to increase from the very
beginning of the treatment. This increase of strength
will continue during the whole treatment, until the organism is 6ompletely freed from the enemy, and unfolds
anew its regenerate life.*
The best time for taking an anti-psoric remedy is in
the morning before breakfast; the evening is less appropriate. The powder may either be taken dry upon the
tongue, (in this case the medicine acts less powerfully,)
and is kept upon the tongue until it is dissolved; or else
it may be moistened in a tea-spoon with two or three
drops of water, and taken in this fashion. The patient
should wait an hour, or at least half an hour, after having
taken the medicine before eating or drinking any thing.t
The other powders are to be marked with successive
numbers.:
* It is inconceivable that allceopathic doctors should have
continually assailed the organism in the treatment of chronic
diseases, without having ever been deterred by their bad
success. The intermediate use of amara joined to cinchona,
induces new affections without doing any good.
t To increase the effect of the remedy, it may be dissolved
in a larger quantity of water; this quantity may still be augmented, if it is desired that. the effect should be increased
still more. The solution may be divided into several parts,
one part being taken every two or three days. Every time
when a part is taken, the solution is stirred up again; by
this means the solution increases in potency, and becomes
more closely related to the disease. It is not advisable to
give of the same solution for several days to come, for the
reason that the water begins to spoil, if kept too long. I
have shown above, how a dose is prepared for smelling in
the various degrees of potency.
t This marking of the powders with successive numbers
has the advantage of enabling the physician to measure the
effect which the medicine has produced. To accomplish



176


During pregnancy the anti-psoric treatment is more
necessary than at any other period, because then the
chronic ailments are more fully developed, the organism and the mind of the pregnant female being highly
susceptible of receiving impressions. During the period
of pregnancy-which is altogether an essential and natural condition of the female-the action of anti-psoric
remedies during that period is more marked and precise.* This should be a warning to the physician to
reduce his doses as much as possible, and to employ
only the highest potencies.
Sucklings never are given any medicine. The mother
or nurse takes the remedy which is intended for the
baby; the medicinal effect is conveyed by the milk in a
sufficient degree.
When in chronic diseases the vital force is left to itself,
it is only capable of shielding itself by palliatives against
the pernicious assaults of the psoric miasm, and the
acute diseases which that miasm develops from time
to time. Such palliatives are the frequent secretions
and evacuations which spontaneously occur in chronic
diseases, diarrhoeas, vomitings, sweats, ulcers, hemorrhages, etc. All such palliatives produce only an appatural labour, than by a timely anti-psoric treatment during
pregnancy? Is not the unnatural presentation of the child
frequently owing to the psoric habit of the mother? Hydrocephalus and other defects of the child always originate
in psora. By subjecting the female to an anti-psoric treat.
ment either before or during pregnancy, her incapacity for
suckling her baby will be removed; soreness of the nipples;
soreness, abscesses, and erysipelatous inflammation of the
mammm, and all uterine hemorrhages consequent upon
weaning, are removed.
* The reverse is sometimes the case. The female, who is
constantly weak and complaining when she is not pregnant,
sometimes enjoys excellent health during pregnancy. Also
in this condition of things anti-psoric remedies act very well.
They ought to be given against the symptoms which existed
before pregnancy.



178
There is but one exception to this general condemnation of all artificial evacuations. Ast the beginning of
harmonious vital principle, may be called, and in fact is subversive. There is an order of subversive dynamic forces. There
is an order of such'subversive dynamic forces, which, in a manner which is absolutely unknown to us, subdues the circulatory
system and endeavours to adapt it to its own nature and to
govern it according to its own laws. By those subversive forces
the action of the circulatory system may either be unnaturally
excited or depressed.
Let us suppose that it has been unnaturally excited. Upon
what principle should we bleed, in such a case 1
If my idea of disease be correct, and, I may say that, although
it does not explain the inmost nature of disease, yet it indicates
its general character-we must bleed the patient in the supposition of depriving the subversive forces of their sphere of activity in the animal economy. But do we accomplish such a
result by bleeding? I maintain that we do not.
There is always a portion of the circulating fluid left, which
secures the subversive forces a hold upon the circulatory system.
And then, is it not rational to suppose, that the subversive forces
having been violently deprived of the sphere of action which
they had conquered for themselves by virtue of their superior
power, and which they now claim as their legitimate property,
they will not leave the system, but will rather attack some other
organ 1 Because we have it in our power to diminish the volume of blood, is this a proof that by diminishing the volume of
blood we-diminish the violence of the subversive forces? Why
should not these forces throw themselves upon other parts of the
organism, since the organism is in their power, and it cannot be
a difficult matter for those forces to choose any of the intimately
connected organic viscera as their principal seat of action?
There is another serious objection to bleeding and one which
shows the absurdity of such a remedy. Not only do the subversive forces remain intact in the organism-though I am
willing to grant that they may be less disposed to attack other
organs of the animal economy than the circulatory system, and
may therefore, in some rare cases, be induced to leave the organism after a powerful depletion;-but, on the other hand the
true or harmonious vital forces are positively deprived of their
support by every act of depletion. The vital forces are constantly
engaged in restoring the losses which the organs undergo by
motion; this restoration is a process of assimilation which can
only be effected by means of the blood; anA this assimilative process continues as long as a vestige of the vital forces remains in the
organism. Death ensues the moment that process stops. Now



181


may relieve him by prescribing an injection of pure,
tepid water; if one will not answer, he may prescribe
duced into the organism,'the subversive forces, being in the
same inseparable connection with those types as cause and effect,
are drawn to them, embody themselves in them and are, in this
way, easily and of their own accord, separated from the organism.
There is a state of the system which is the opposite of what
we commonly designate by the term fever: coldness, chills,
thin and weak pulse. This state of the system evidently indicates the presence of subversive forces in the organism, which
have depressed the action of the circulatory system. If bloodletting be the true mode of separating this part of the organism
from the subversive forces, why do we not resort to that remedy
in the condition of the system which I have supposed just now
If, in this condition of the system, the advocates of depletion do
not bleed, it is because they either do not know upon what principle they bleed at all, or because they bleed upon such fanciful
principles that facts are all the time rebelling against them.
The hommcopathist knows that this condition of the system
corresponds to its types, bryonia, etc.
To the advocates of blood-letting Hahnemann addresses the
following severe remarks in a note: " Beginners and learners
may be pardoned for using depleting processes; but if they
dare to pride themselves on their pretended improvements, and
to promulgate blood-letting and cupping as processes that are
eminently homceopathic, then they make themselves ridiculous;
they ought to be pitied for their dabbling and for their bungling
blindness, which inflicts suffering upon their patients. Is it
laziness, or is it a foolish predilection for the pernicious routine
of alleopathy, which prevents them from making themselves
acquainted with the true homoeopathic remedy that always acts
with certainty and success? It is only by means of persevering study, and indefatigable searching that the student of
homoeopathy can penetrate to its inmost recesses and acquire
that mastery of the science which is now possessed by some."
Blood-letting and all the other violent all copathic practices of
artificial evacuation, are on a par with the system of corporeal
punishment in education, and with the doctrine of self-sacrifice,
or mortification of the passions from the standing-point of an
absolute and irretrievable necessity. Those who profess such
a doctrine, of course, will be in favour of blood-letting; those,
on the contrary, who have faith in the integral goodness of human nature; who understand and feel that the true development
of human nature is a free and unbounded evolution of all its
8



182


another in a quarter of an hour, and even a third; this
last will certainly act. This kind of injection is devoid
of all mercurial influence; it acts mechanically by distending the rectum and may be repeated every three or
four days, until the anti-psoric remedies shall have suc
ceeded in regulating the process of intestinal evacuation.
Next to sulphur Lycopodium acts most favourably under
suchlcircumstances.*
Fontanelles should not be suddenly suppressed by
the homoeopathic physician, if the patient has used them
already for a long time, often for years. The anti-psoric
treatment ought to have progressed already considerably
before that suppression is accomplished. But already
in the beginning of the treatment they may be diminished, if this can be done without suppressing them    entirely.
Physicians often incommode the patient by directgenuine tendencies and forces, and who have demonstrated to
their minds the glorious truth that human nature is destined and
therefore able to work out for itself a circumambient order of
things which will be an exact reflex of nature's varied and inmost life, and a solemn and consecrated acknowledgment of all
its manifestations: all such will look upon blood-letting with
abhorrence, and will preach and practise the doctrine that vital
harmony cannot be the result of a violent and chaotic invasion
of the constitution of man.
* NOTE OF THE TRANSLATOR: To produce this kind of
mechanical distention, a tampon may be inserted in the rectum,
which sometimes acts very promptly and to the great relief of the
patient. A potato answers the purpose of a tampon better than
anything else. It may be cut in the shape of a wedge, and be
gradually introduced into the rectum. To patients who are
affected with chronic constipation I take the liberty of suggesting the following advice. Let them go to stool every morning,
either before or after breakfast, even when there is no occasion
for it; let them bear down for a while, and continue this practice for some days. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they
will succeed in regulating their bowels in this way. But they
must be careful of always going to stool at the same hour and
even minute. It is a matter of course that the practice which I
here recommend, is a mere adjuvans of the general treatment.



183


ing him to wear woollen fabrics upon the bare skin as
preventatives against colds. These ought only to be discontinued when the patient's susceptibility for catching
cold has been considerably diminished by the anti-psoric
treatment, and when the.mild weather has set in. They
may first be replaced by cotton, which produces less
friction upon the skin, and excites it less than wool.
Little by little the patient may be accustomed to wear
linen upon the bare skin.
There are many self-evident reasons, one of which is
the delicate nature of homceopathic drugs, why the homoeopathic physician should not permit the use of scents
in any shape or manner, medicinal tea, mint, pastry,
aniseed, bitters, liquors, lichen, spices of any kind,
spiced chocolate, electuaries, tooth-tinctures, toothpowders, and the various other fashionable compounds.
Warm or hot baths cannot be permitted; they always
interfere with the treatment, and are, moreover, unnecessary, if they are merely used for the sake of cleanliness. The body may be kept clean by washing it
quickly with soap-water that has the temperature of the
body. This kind of washing does not injure the effects
of the anti-psoric treatment. &
In the first edition of this treatise I have recommended
to use the smallest possible electrical sparks for the purpose of aiding the anti-psoric treatment by animating
those parts of the body which had been long affected
with paralysis or insensibility. I am sorry that this advice should have been given. I know from experience
that, so far from following it strictly, it has been constantly transgressed. Large sparks have always been. used to the great' detriment of the patient, although it
has been constantly asserted ihat they were as small as
could be obtained. My advice now is, to abandon the
use of sparks altogether. We should avoid the least
suspicion of using enantiopathic aid, and then, we have
an efficient homceopathic local remedy for partial paralysis or insensibility: cold water, from mountain sources



184


or deep wells *-(100 of Reaumur.) The water may be
used conjointly with the anti-psorics. The parts may
either be sprinkled with cold water every minute, or
every two or three minutes; or else the whole body may
be sprinkled over with fine water, in the form of dust,
for one, two, three, or five minutes. This sprinkling
may be resorted to more or less frequently according
to circumstances, once or several times.
THE REMEDIES
That have been found most efficacious in the treatment
of chronic diseases, shall be described in the subsequent
volumes according to the symptoms which they are
capable of producing upon the healthy organism. I
shall point out those which may be given against diseases of psoric origin, the syphilitic diseases, and the
diseases from sycosis.
The remedies against syphilis and sycosis are much
less numerous than those against psora. This is no
reason with the intelligent observer why psora should
not be a chronic miasm and the head-fountain of most
chronic diseases.
It is not astonishing that the psoric miasm, having
spread for thousands of years through millions of organisms all of which differ in constitution and are exposed to a variety of influences, should have produced
that host of chronic diseases which become manifest by
the suppression of the psoric eruption upon the skin,
whether that suppression be the result of violent ex* Water of this temperature, or still lower, possesses the
primary power of diminishing the sensibility and mobility
of the living body; hence it may afford homceopathic aid
in the treatment of paralysis or insensibility.



187
many riedicinal properties in their unprepared form,
(such as common salt, lycopodium;) others, (such as gold,
silicea, argilla,) do not seem to possess any. But their
medicinal properties exist in a latent state, and may all
be developed to a high degree by the peculiar mode of
preparation prescribed by homoeopathy. Other substances, on the contrary, act so powerfully in their natural form that the -smallest portion of them, upon coming in contact with the animal fibre, exercises a corroding and destructive action upon it; such substances are arsenic, corrosive sublimate, etc. By the homoeopathic mnode of preparing those substances, their
otherwise powerful action is suitably modified by being
developed into a series of degrees of potency, many of
which were never known before.
The alteration which is effected in the properties of
natural substances, especially medicinal substances,
either by triturating or shaking them in conjunction
with a non-medicinal powder or liquid, is almost marvellous. This discovery is due to homoeopathy.
Beside this alteration of their medicinal properties,
the homoeopathic mode of preparing medicines produces an alteration in their chemical properties. Whereas, in their crude form, they are insoluble either in water
or alcohol, they become entirely soluble, both in water
and alcohol, by means of this homoeopathic transformation. This discovery is invaluable to the healing
art.
The brown-black juice of the sea-insect sepia, which
was formerly used only for painting and drawing, is
soluble in water only, while in its unprepared form.
When homoeopathically prepared by trituration, it becomes also soluble in alcohol.
Nothing can be extracted from petroleum by means
of alcohol, except when that drug is adulterated with
vegetable ethereal oil; in its unadulterated form, petroleum is neither soluble in water nor in alcohol, (nor
ether.) By means of trituration it becomes soluble in
both those substances.
Lycopodii pollen floats in alcohol and on the surface



190


out below; the following anti-psorics come under this
remark:* silica, barita carbonica, calcarea carbonica,
natrum carbonicum, ammonium carbonicum, magnesia
carbonica, carbo vegetabilis, carbo animalis, graphites,
sulphur, antimonium crudum, antimonium, gold, platina, iron, zinc, copper, silver, tin,-lumps of those
metals, not the foil, are triturated upon a hard, fine,
grinding-stone under water, or sometimes under alcohol,
like the iron.  Of these pulverized substances, you
take one grain; mercury may be used in the liquid
state; of petroleum, you take one drop instead of one
grain. Pour this grain into a non-glazed porcelain
mortar, having before covered the bpttom of it with
sand slightly moistened and triturated. Then you take
thirty-three grains of sugar of milk, and mix them with
the drug by triturating the mass with some force for
about six minutes by means of a porcelain pestle; before you triturate, stir the mass for a little while with a
spatula. Having triturated the mass, you stir it again
for about four minutes, scraping up that part which
covers the bottom of the porcelain mortar, and also that
which is adherent to the pestlet; then you triturate
again with great force for six minutes, without however
adding anything new. This mass you scrape up again,
for four minutes, add another thirty-three grains of sugar
of milk, stir the new compound for a moment with the
ing the juice with the alcohol by means of two shakes. I
know this from experience.
* Phosphorus, which is so easily oxydized in the open
air, is dynamized in the same manner, and may be dissolved in both liquids. There are some precautionary
rules to be observed, which will be pointed out below.
t When the process of trituration is completed, mortar,
pestle, and spatula, are to be repeatedly immersed in boiling water, being carefully wiped and dried after each immersion. The mortar, pestle, and spatula, may then be
exposed to a heat which would make them red-hot. This
will suffice to satisfy even the most anxious minds that no
atom of the medicinal substance has remained adhering to
either mortar, pestle, or spatula.



191


spatula, then triturate it for six minutes witn the pestle,
scrape it up for four minutes, triturate again with great
force for six minutes, scrape the mass up again for four
minutes, then add the last thirty-three grains of sugar
of milk, and with this last added portion proceed as
with the two former. This powder you enclose in a
well-corked glass, and mark it with the name of the
substance, and the figure loo, to show that this is the
one hundredth potency of the substance.*
In order to prepare the degree 10000ooo, you take one
grain of the degree too and add to it thirty-three grains
of sugar of milk. Stir up this mass for a moment with
the spatula. Then triturate it for six minutes, stir it up
for four minutes, triturate again for six minutes, and then
stir up again for four. After this you add the second
"* The preparation of the one hundredth potency of phosphorus by pulverisation requires some modifications. First
you take one hundred grains of sugar of milk, and, by means
of fifteen drops of water you make them into a sort of
dough or pap in the mortar. Then you cut one grain of
phosphorus into twelve pieces, kneading them into a dough
by means of the moistened pestle, together with the one hundred grains of sugar of milk, the portions of the mass which
remain adhering to the pestle being scraped off again while
the process of kneading is carried on. In this way the
phosphorus molecules may be triturated during the first two
periods of six minutes each, into invisible atoms without a
spark being elicited.  During the third period of six
minutes, the mass being sufficiently pulverised, the kneading
may be replaced by trituration. During the next eighteen
minutes the process of trituration is carried on with moderate force, the mass being scraped up every six minutes;
this scraping can be easily accomplished on account of the
mass being but slightly adherent either to the mortar or the
pestle. After the sixth trituration the powder shines but
feebly in the open air, and has but little smell. It is then
enclosed in well corked vials and marked Phosphorus 100.
The next two degrees of potency 10u00 and I are prepared
in the same way as those of the other dry medicinal sub;
stances.



193


alcohol,* and shake the vial twice, first carrying the arm
up and then dowp. Only two thirds of the vial ought
to be filled with the solution.t
This vial is then marked with the name of the medicine, and the number 1oo 1. Of this solution you take
one drop, and mix it with 99 or 100 drops of pure alcohol, shaking the vial twice after it has been corked.
This vial is marked oooo0000. Of this solution you again
take one drop, mixing it with 99 or 100 drops of pure
alcohol. Then shake the vial twice, and mark it 100oo I.
Of this potency you again take a drop, and mix it with
99 or 100 drops of pure alcohol, shaking this third vial
twice, and marking it II. In the same way you continue the preparation and marking of the higher potencies 100 II, 10000 II, II.T The intermediate vials are
put in perpendicular boxes, and are kept in the dark in
order not to be affected by the light of day. In practice
only the full vials are used.
The shaking being accomplished by means of moderate strokes with the arm, it is expedient that the vials
should be large enough to have only two thirds of their
volume filled with the hundred drops. Vials that have
* These quantities are measured by means of vials which
contain exactly fifty drops. It would be- too tedious to
count fifty drops of water, especially when the water does
not flow easily out of the vial.
t It is well to provide the vial with a mark stating the
number of shakes and the date when the solution was prepared.
t Frequent observation has convinced me that it is better
to shake the vials twice only in order to develop the medicinal virtue of the drug just enough to affect the disease
in a proper manner. By shaking the vial ten times as I
was in the habit of doing, the proportion between the pro.
gressively developed intensity of action of the medicinal
properties of the drug and the degree of the potency was
destroyed in favour of the former. The object of the
dynamising process is to develop the intensity of action of
the medicinal properties of the drug, at the same time as



195


ity both in the preparation and exhibition of medicines,
the homoeopathic physicians will be enabled to compare
with great certainty the results which they may obtain
in their practice.
The globules are moistened with the liquid in this
way. A vessel of the size of a thimble, made either
of earthenware, china, or glass, is filled with globules
weighing in all a few grains; upon these you drop several
drops of the medicine, taking a few drops more rather than
less, in order to make sure that the liquid has reached the
bottom of the vessel, and all the globules have been moistened. This process may last about a minute. The vessel is then turned over upon a double sheet of blotting
paper; if any of the liquid should remain in the vessel,
it is poured upon the globules, that will be found adhering to each other like a cone. After a while the globules
are spread upon the paper, and dried. When dry, the
globules are filled in a glass vial, which should then be
well corked and marked.
The globules having been moistened with the liquid,
they obtain a faint appearance; The non-moistened
globules look whiter and more shining.
In order to take the globules you first prepare a capsule of white paper, filled with two or three grains of
sugar of milk. The globules having been deposited in
this sugar, the upper surface of the capsule is pressed
upon with a spatula or the nail of the thumb, until the
globules are crushed; the powder may then be easily
dissolved in water.
When I speak of globules, I mean those mentioned
above, two hundred of which, or thereabout, weigh a
grain.
In the subsequent'list of anti-psoric remedies no isopathic remedies are mentioned, for the reason that their
effects upon the healthy organism have not been sufficiently ascertained. Even the itch miasm, (psorin) in
its various degrees of potency, comes under this objec



DEFINITION


OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TECHNICAL TERMS CONTAINED IN
THIS VOLUME.
(Some of these definitions have been copied from Hooper's Dictionary.)
Adipose tissue,-see tissue.
Adventitious,-any thing that accidentally, and not in the
common course of natural causes, happens to make a
part of another. It is used in medicine in opposition to
hereditary.
Allceopathy,-under this denomination Hahnemann ranges
all those medical theories that are based upon principles
different from his own doctrine.
Amenorrhoea,-accidental cessation of the menstrual flux.
Anasarca,-a species of dropsy from a serous tumour,
spread between the skin and flesh.
Aneurism,-a pulsating tumour formed by the dilatation of
an artery.
Atrophy,-nervous consumption. This disease is marked
by a gradual wasting of the body, unaccompanied either
by a difficulty of breathing, cough, or any evident fever,
but usually attended with a loss of appetite and impaired
digestion.
Bursa mucosa,-a mucus bag, containing a kind of mucous
fat. These bursae are generally found where tendons
or muscles glide over bones. By means of those bursm,
tendons and muscles glide easily over the bones.
Cataract,-a species of blindness, arising almost -always
from an opacity of the crystalline lens or its capsule.



198
Cornea,-the thick and transparent part of the eye, placed
between the two lids.
Coryza,-running at the nose.
Chlorosis,-green sickness, a species of disease which
affects young females laboring under a retention or
suppression of the menses.
Carcinoma,-or cancer.
Crusta lactea,-this disease mostly attacks some part of the
face of infants at the breast. It is known by an eruption of broad pustules, full of a glutinous liquor, which
form white scabs when they are ruptured.
Diabetes,-an immoderate flow of urine.
Diaphoretics,-a class of remedies which increase the discharge by the skin.
Degeneration,-a morbid alteration of some organic viscus.
Dysuria,-suppression or difficulty in discharging the urine.
Ecstasy,-a trance.
Empycma,-a collection of pus in the cavity of the thorax.
Enantiopathic,-the same as allceopathic.
Enuresis,--incontinence of urine.
Endemic,-a disease is so termed that is peculiar to a
certain class of persons, or country. The goitre is endemical to the inhabitants of certain low regions in
Switzerland.
Epistaxis,-bleeding from the nose.
Epizootic carbuncle,-a species of anthrax common to the
larger mammalia. In man it forms on the cheek, neck,
or back, and, in a few days, becomes highly gangrenous.
Erysipelas,-the rose or St Anthony's fire. This disease
is an inflammatory affection of the skin or of the mucous
membrane.
Exanthema,-an eruption of the skin.
Expectorants,-a class of medicines which increase the
discharge of mucus from the lungs.



199


Fistula,-a term in surgery applied to a long and sinuous
ulcer that has a narrow opening, and which sometimes
leads to a larger cavity, and has no disposition to heal.
Fistula may be formed in the lower part of the rectum, in
the bladder, in the inner canthus of the eye, etc.
Fomentations,-a sort of partial bathing, by applying hot
flannels to any part, dipped in medicated decoctions,
whereby steams are communicated to the parts, and their
vessels are relaxed.
Fontanelles,-the French name for artificial issues.
Fungus hematodes,-bleeding fungus, also called soft
cancer or medullary sarcoma. It attacks most parts of
the body, particularly the eye, breast, testicle, and the ex.
tremities. It begins with a soft enlargement of the part,
which is extremely elastic and, in some cases, painful.
As it increases, it often has the feel of an encysted
tumour, and at length becomes irregular, bulging out
here and there. When it ulcerates, it bleeds, and shoots
up a mass of a bloody fungus.
Gland,-an organic part of the body, composed of bloodvessels, nerves and absorbents, and destined for the secretion or alteration of some peculiar fluid.
Glaucoma,-a cataract of the crystalline lens.
Goitre,-an enlargement of the thyroid body in front of
the trachea.
Gutta serena,-a diminution or total loss of sight, arising
from a paralytic affection of the retina and optic nerve.
Hematemesis,-vomiting of blood from the stomach.
Hematuria,-hemorrhage from the bladder.
Hemoptysis,-spitting of blood from the lungs.
Hemorrhoids,- or piles, excrescences arising from the inferior part of the rectum. They are divided into bleeding
and blind piles.
Hernia,-a rupture, or a protrusion of a part of the intestine.
The places in which this protrusion most frequently
takes place, are the groin, the navel, the labia pudcndi,
and the upper and fore-part of the thigh.



200


Herpes, tetter,-a genus of disease distinguished by an assemblage of numerous little creeping ulcers, in clusters,
itching very much, and difficult to heal; they terminate
in furfuraceous scales.
Humerus,-the long bone of the upper-arm.
Hysteria, hysterics,-a disease common to females. The
disease attacks in paroxysms or fits.
Hypochondria,-those parts of the body, which lie under
the cartilages of the spurious ribs.
Idiopathic,-this name is given to diseases originating in
some peculiar and distinct miasm.
Inoculation,-the insertion of a poison into any part of the
body; it was mostly practised with that of the small-pox.
Ischuria,-a suppression of urine.
Issue,-an artificial ulcer made by cutting a portion of the
skin, and burying a pea or some other substance in it, so
as to produce a discharge of purulent matter.
Leucorrhoea,-the whites, a secretion of whitish or milky
mucus, from the vagina of women.
Lypoma,-a solitary, soft, unequal, indolent tumour, arising
from a luxuriancy of adeps or fat in the cellular membrane.
Menorrhagia,-an immoderate flow of the menses.
Mollities ossium, or ramollissement of the bones,-softness
of the bones, arising from a want of the phosphate of
lime. In children this disease is called the rickets.
Muscac volitantes,-particles of dust or motes which the
patient imagines to see upon the eye or in the air.
Oedema,-a synonyme of anasarca. See Anasarca.
Oesophagus,-the membranous and muscular tube that descends in the neck from the pharynx to the stomach; it
carries the food into the stomach.
Orgasm,-an unnatural agitation of the blood.
Osteo-sarcoma,-a swelling of the bone; the bone and tho
surrounding flesh become one putrefying mass.



201


Paronychia,-a collection of pus formed in the fingers.
Patella,-the bone in front of the knee.
Parotid gland,-the gland situated directly behind the ear;
the swelling of this gland is called the mumps.
Prostatic fluid,-a fluid secreted by the prostatic gland
situated in front of the bladder.
Polypus,-a bleeding tumour generally found in the nose,
uterus, or vagina.
Ptyalism,-a morbid flow of saliva.
Ramollissement,-see Mollities Ossium.
Region,-in surgery, a circumscribed part of the body.
Sarcoma,-a fleshy excrescence.
Sedatives,-a class of medicines which diminish the animal energy.
Sphacelus,-the highest degree of mortification.
Sporadic,-this is an epithet for such infections and other
diseases as seize a few persons at any time or season.
Spina Ventosa,-a tumour arising from an internal caries
of a bone.
Tabes Mucosa,-a wasting away of the mucous membranes.
Tarsus,-the ankle-joint.
Tinea Capitis,-the scald head; a disease characterized by
small ulcers at the root of the hairs of the head, which
produce a friable white crust.
Tissues,-or textures which compose the different organs
of animals.
Tonics,-medicines which are supposed to increase the tone
of the muscular fibre (in the old school of course.)
Trichiasis, Plica Polonica,-a disease of the hairs, in which
they become long and coarse, and matted and glued into inextricable tangles. It is peculiar to Poland, Lithuania, and Tartary, and generally appears during the autumnal season.
Tunica Vaginalis Testis,-one of the covering membranes
of the testicles.



202
Vaccination,-the insertion of the matter of cow-pox.
Varix,-a dilatation of a vein.
Vesicatories,-applications which, exciting inflammation
on the skin, occasion a thin serous fluid to be poured from
the exhalants, raise the cuticle, and form the appearance
of a vesicle.
THE END.






THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
CL A ss
s ~   DATE DUE


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