ORGANON
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HAHNEMANN
MEDICAL
LIBRARY
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PUBLISHING SOCIETY
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Other Works of the Society are:
I.—The HAHNEMANN MATERIA MEDICA, containing: Kali bichro-
micum, by Dr. Drysdale; Aconitum, by Dr. Dudgeon;
Arsenicum, by Dr. Black; Uranium nitricum, by Dr. E. T.
Blake; and Belladonna, by Dr. R. Hughes. Price 10s., to
Members, 5s.
II. MATERIA MEDICA, PHYSIOLOGICAL AND APPLIED, Vol. I,
containing: Aconitum, by R. E. Dudgeon, M.D.; Crotalus,
by J. W. Hayward, M.D.; Kali bichromicum, by J. J.
Drysdale, M.D., and Digitalis, Nux Vomica, and Plumbum,
by F. Black, M.D. Price 15s., to Members, 10s.
(6
III.—BRITISH REPERTORY, containing: chaps. i. "Disposition and
Mind;" ii. "Sensorium;" iii. "Head, Scalp, and Hair;"
iv. "Eyes;" v. "Ears," by Dr. Dudgeon; vi. "Nose and
Smell;" vii. "Face and Neck;" viii. "Teeth and Gums;" ix.
"Mouth and Tongue;" x." Throat ;" xi. "Appetite, Taste
and Digestion ;" xii. " Acidity, Nausea, and Vomiting;" xiii.
Stomach," by Drs. Drysdale and Stokes; xiv. "Abdomen,”
by Drs. Drysdale, Stokes and Hayward; xv. "Stools and
Anus;" by Dr. H. Nankivell; xviii. "Female Genital
Organs," by Drs. Drysdale and Stokes; xxiv. “Back and
Neck," by Dr. Stokes; "Ear" chapter, 2nd edition, by John
W. Hayward, M.D. Some of these are out of print. Price
£3, to Members, £2.
IV.— The “THERAPEUTIC PART," specimen chapters: "Bronchitis,"
by Dr. R. Hughes; "Jaundice," by Dr. J. Gibbs Blake;
"Acute Rheumatism," by Drs. Drysdale and Blake;
"Obesity," by Dr. Ker; and "Morbid Growths," by Dr.
Black. (Published in Mon. Hom. Rev. and Brit. Journ.
of Hom.)
V.-PATHOGENETIC CYCLOPÆDIA, by Dr. Dudgeon. Price 5s., to
Members, 28.
VI.—HAHNEMANN'S MATERIA MEDICA PURA, translated by Dr.
Dudgeon. 2 Vols. Price £1 16s., to Members, £1 88.
Work now in hand :-REPERTORY: Eyes, by Dr. Dudgeon; Nose, by
Dr. Jones, Birkenhead; Urinary Organs, by Dr. Simpson; Lower
Extremities, by Dr. Wilkinson, Bolton. THERAPEUTIC PART, by
Dr. Hughes.

ORGANON
OF
MEDICINE
BY
66936
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
Aude sapere.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FIFTH EDITION, WITH AN APPENDIX,
BY
R. E. DUDGEON, M.D.
HAHNEMANN PUBLISHING SOCIETY.
BIRKENHEAD:
THE HON. SECRETARY, 61, SHREWSBURY ROAD.
LONDON: E. GOULD AND SON, 59, MOORGATE STREET, E.C.
NEW YORK AND PHILADELPHIA: BOERICKE AND TAFEL.
1893.
Price 78. 6d. To Members 5s.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
In this new edition of my translation of the ORGANON
I have completely revised the text, in order to make it a
still more exact reproduction of the original. In the
Appendix I have given all the more important variations
of the previous editions. I have also indicated the corre-
sponding views as set forth in the Essay on a New
Principle and the Medicine of Experience, both of which
essays may be regarded as the precursors of the ORGANON.
I have added Hahnemann's later opinions on several sub-
jects treated of in this work. In the growth of such a
complex thing as a new system of medicine, it was inevit-
able that there should be considerable alterations and
improvements effected in the course of forty-eight years,
the time occupied by Hahnemann in the elaboration of
his novel doctrine and practice. His first idea of the
homœopathic rule of practice occurred to him while trans-
lating Cullen's Materia Medica in 1790. The Essay on a
New Principle, in which he propounded the homoeopathic
therapeutic rule, as yet believed by him to be of only
"partial application," viz. to some chronic diseases, was
published in 1796. Nine years after this, viz. in 1805,
in the Medicine of Experience, he enunciated the rule with
no such limitations of its applicability. This essay con-
tains much of what we find in the first and later editions
of the ORGANON. The first edition of this latter work
appeared in 1810. The second edition, differing very
considerably from the first, was published in 1819.
The third edition, which hardly differed at all from the
previous one, appeared in 1824. The fourth edition,
vi
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
which offers some important variations from the text of
its immediate predecessor (chiefly determined by the new
theory of chronic diseases), bears the date of 1829. The
fifth and last edition, published in 1833, contains several
novelties, such as the theories of the "vital force" and
"the dynamisation of medicines." In previous editions
Hahnemann had in several places spoken rather slightingly
of the vital force and its influence on the production and
cure of disease, but these expressions are either eliminated
or greatly modified in the last edition, and the "vital force"
occupies quite a different and a much more important posi-
tion in regard to disease, its cause and cure. The doctrine
of dynamisation of medicines by the pharmaceutical pro-
cesses peculiar to homoeopathy, which had only been hinted
at in previous editions, is in this edition distinctly stated.
The directions as to the repetition of the dose are also
different from those in previous editions. These two last-
named points are still further modified in Hahnemann's
later work on Chronic Diseases (1838), as will be seen
by the quotations I have made from that work.
Thus while the body of this work contains the ORGANON
precisely as it appears in the last edition, the Appendix
gives a detailed history of the origin, growth and progress
of the homœopathic system of medicine in the mind of its.
author.
I have not presumed to criticise the views or state-
ments of the author. His denunciations of the practice
of the old school, though quite deserved when he wrote,
are not applicable to the present condition of allopathic
medicine. It is beyond all question that it was mainly
owing to the treatment and practice of Hahnemann and
his disciples that the disastrous methods in vogue for
centuries previous to and far into his time have been
abandoned. It remains, however, doubtful if the allo-
pathic methods of the present day have any greater claim
to scientific character or success than those they have
superseded. Were Hahnemann alive now we can easily
imagine how he would have inveighed against the school-
medicine of the present day. The tonic, stimulant, anti-
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
vii
pyretic and narcotic practice of modern medicine is as
far removed from the scientific simplicity of homoeopathy
as were the venesections, blisters, cauteries, purgatives
and mercurialisations against which Hahnemann waged
successful war. Hahnemann's vigorous protest against
the dominant medicine of his day is useful as showing
the negative good effects of homoeopathy, for almost all
the irrational practices he denounced have been abandoned;
it remains for his followers to exhibit its positive effects
in the victory of rational and scientific medicine.
I am indebted to Dr. Richard Hughes for several
emendations of my first translation, whereby the author's
meaning has been rendered more exact and clearer; also
for some rectifications of Hahnemann's quotations and
for the idea of a comparative table or concordance of the
aphorisms in the several editions, which he gave in the
British Journal of Homœopathy, vol. xxxix.
The references in the text to the notes in the Appendix
are indicated by the sign "(@),” and some needful explan-
atory notes are enclosed in square brackets, or divided
from the text by a line. The latter are confined to the
quotations in the Appendix.
March, 1893.
R. E. DUDGEON.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
ACCORDING to the testimony of all ages, no occupation
is more unanimously declared to be a conjectural art than
medicine; consequently none has less right to refuse
a searching enquiry as to whether it is well founded
than it, on which man's health, his most precious posses-
sion on earth, depends.
I consider that it redounds to my honour that I am the
only one in recent times who has subjected it to a serious
honest investigation, and has communicated to the world
the results of his convictions in writings published, some
with, some without my name.
.
In this investigation I found the way to the truth,
but I had to tread it alone, very far from the common
highway of medical routine. The farther I advanced from
truth to truth, the more my conclusions (none of which I
accepted unless confirmed by experience) led me away
from the old edifice, which, being built up of opinions,
was only maintained by opinions.
The results of my convictions are set forth in this book.
It remains to be seen whether physicians, who mean
to act honestly by their conscience and by their fellow-
creatures, will continue to stick to the pernicious tissue
of conjectures and caprice, or can open their eyes to the
salutary truth.
I must warn the reader that indolence, love of ease
and obstinacy preclude effective service at the altar of
truth, and only freedom from prejudice and untiring zeal
qualify for the most sacred of all human occupations, the
practice of the true system of medicine. The physician
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
ix
who enters on his work in this spirit becomes directly
assimilated to the Divine Creator of the world, whose
human creatures he helps to preserve, and whose approval
renders him thrice blessed.
{
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
PHYSICIANS are my brethren; I have nothing against
them personally. The medical art is my subject.
I have to inquire whether medicine as hitherto taught
has, in all its parts, been merely developed out of the
heads, the self-deception and the caprice of its professors,
or whether it has been derived from nature.
If it be merely a product of speculative subtlety, arbi-
trary maxims, traditional practices and capricious deduc-
tions drawn from ambiguous premises, it is and remains a
nullity, though it may reckon its age by thousands of
years, and be decorated with the charters of all the kings
and emperors of the earth.
The true healing art is in its nature a pure science of
experience, and can and must rest on clear facts and on
the sensible phenomena pertaining to their sphere of
action, for all the subjects it has to deal with are clearly
and satisfactorily cognizable by the senses through expe-
rience. Knowledge of the disease to be treated, know-
ledge of the effects of the medicines, and how the ascer-
tained effects of the medicines are to be employed for
the removal of diseases, all this experience alone teaches
adequately. Its subjects can only be derived from pure
experiences and observations, and it dares not take a single
step out of the sphere of pure well-observed experience
and experiment, if it would avoid becoming a nullity, a
farce.
But that the whole art of medicine as hitherto practised,
though it has been, for want of something better, prac-
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
xi
tised for these 2500 years by millions of physicians, many
of whom were earnest high-minded men, is yet in every
respect an extremely stupid, useless and thoroughly null
affair, is proved by the following few incontrovertible
considerations.
Unaided reason can know nothing of itself (a priori),
can evolve out of itself alone no conception of the nature
of things, of cause and effect; every one of its conclusions
about the actual must always be based on sensible percep-
tions, facts and experiences if it would elicit the truth.
If in its operation it should deviate by a single step from
the guidance of perception, it would lose itself in the
illimitable region of phantasy and of arbitrary specula-
tion, the mother of pernicious illusion and of absolute
nullity.
In the pure sciences of experience, in physics, chemistry
and medicine, merely speculative reason can conse-
quently have no voice; there, when it acts alone, it
degenerates into empty speculation and phantasy, and
produces only hazardous hypotheses, which in millions of
instances are, and by their very nature must be, self-
deception and falsehood.
Such has hitherto been the splendid juggling of so-
called theoretical medicine, in which a priori conceptions
and speculative subtleties raised a number of proud
schools, which only showed what each of their founders
had dreamed about things which could not be known,
and which were of no use for the cure of diseases.
Out of these sublime systems, soaring far beyond all
experience, medical practice could obtain nothing available
for actual treatment. So it pursued its course confidently
at the patient's bedside in accord with the traditional
prescriptions of its books telling how physicians had
hitherto treated, and in conformity with the methods of
its practical authorities, unconcerned, like them, about
the teachings of nature-guided experience, unconcerned
about true reasons for its treatment, and quite content
with the key to easy practice—the prescription book.
A healthy, unprejudiced, conscientious examination of
xii
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
""
this confused business shows plainly that what has hitherto
gone by the name of "the art of medicine was merely
a pseudo-scientific fabrication, remodelled from time to
time to meet the prevailing fashion in medical systems,
like Gellert's hat in the fable, but, as regards the
treatment of disease, ever the same blind, pernicious
method.
A healing art conformable to nature and experience did
not exist. Everything in traditional medicine was the
outcome of art and imagination, having no foundation in
experience, but pranked out in the habiliments of proba-
bility.
The object of cure (the disease) was manufactured to
order by pathology. It was arbitrarily settled what
diseases, how many and what forms and kinds there should
be. Just think! The whole range of diseases, produced
in innumerable and always unforeseeable variety by infinite
Nature in human beings exposed to thousands of different
conditions, the pathologist cuts down so ruthlessly that a
mere handful of cut and dry forms is the result!
The wiseacres defined diseases a priori, and attributed
to them transcendental substrata not warranted by expe-
rience (how could plain pure experience ever sanction
such fantastic dreams?); no! they pretended to possess
an insight into the inner nature of things and the invisible
vital processes, which no mortal can have.
Now, in order to decide on something positive with
regard to the instruments of cure, the powers of the
different medicines in the materia medica were inferred
from their physical, chemical
physical, chemical and other irrelevant
qualities, also from their odour, taste and external aspect,
but chiefly from impure experiences at the sick bed,
where, in the tumult of the morbid symptoms, only mixtures
of medicines were prescribed for imperfectly described
cases of disease.
Just think! the dynamic spiritual
power of altering man's health hidden in the invisible
interior of medicines, and never manifested purely and
truly in any other way than by their effects on the
healthy human body, was arbitrarily ascribed to them,
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Xili
without interrogating the medicines themselves in this only
admissible way of pure experiment, and listening to their
response when so questioned!
Then therapeutics taught how to apply the medicines,
whose qualities had been thus inferred, ascribed or
imagined, to the supposed fundamental cause or to single
symptoms of disease, in conformity with the rule contraria
contrariis of the hypothesis-framer Galen, and in direct
opposition to nature; and this doctrine was held to be
more than sufficiently established if eminent authorities
could be adduced in support of it.
All these unnatural human doctrines, after being con-
nected together by all sorts of illogical false deductions,
were then welded into scholastic forms by the noble art that
devotes itself to division, subdivision and tabellation, and
lo! the manufactured article, the art of medicine, was
ready for use, a thing the most opposed to nature and
experience it is possible to conceive, a structure built up
entirely of the opinions of various kinds furnished by
thousands of differently constituted minds. In all its
parts this edifice is a pure nullity, a pitiable self-deception,
eminently fitted to imperil human life by its methods of
treatment, blindly counter to the end proposed, incessantly
ridiculed by the wisest men of all ages, and labouring
under the curse of not being what it professes to be, and
not being able to perform what it promises.
Sober, unprejudiced reflection, on the other hand, can
easily convince us that to hold correct views about every
case of disease we have to cure, to obtain an accurate
knowledge of the true powers of medicines, to employ
them on a plan adapted to each morbid condition and to ad-
minister them in proper dose,-in a word, the complete true
healing art, can never be the work of self-satisfied ratio-
cination and illusory opinions, but that the requisites for
this, the materials as well as the rules for its exercise, are
only to be discovered by due attention to nature by means
of our senses, by careful honest observations and by experi-
ments conducted with all possible purity, and in no other
way; and, rejecting every falsifying admixture of arbi-
xiv
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
trary dicta, must be faithfully sought in this the only
way commensurate to the high value of precious human
life.
It remains to be seen if by my conscientious labours in
this way the true healing art has been found.
DR. SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
LEIPZIG, end of the year 1818.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
In the five years since the publication of the Second
Edition, the truth of the homoeopathic healing art has
found so much acceptance from physicians far and near,
that it can no longer be obscured, still less extinguished,
by abusive writings, of which, however, there is no lack.
I rejoice at the benefit it has already conferred on
humanity, and look forward with intense pleasure to the
not distant time when, though I shall be no longer here
below, a future generation of mankind will do justice to
this gift of a gracious God, and will thankfully avail
themselves of the blessed means He has provided for the
alleviation of their bodily and mental sufferings.
A great help to the spread of the good cause in foreign
lands is won by the good French translation of the last
edition, recently brought out at great sacrifice, by that
genuine philanthropist, my learned friend Baron von
Brunnow.* He has enriched it with a preface which
gives an exposition of the homoeopathic healing art and
its history, and at the same time serves as an introduc-
tion to the study of the work itself.
In this third edition I have not refrained from making
any alterations and emendations suggested by increased
knowledge and necessitated by further experience.
KÖTHEN; Easter, 1824.
S. H.
* Organon de l'art de guérir; traduit de l'original allemand du Dr.
Samuel Hahnemann, Conseiller de Son Altesse Sérénissime le Duc d'Anhalt-
Köthen, par Erneste George de Brunnow; à Dresde, chez Arnold, libraire-
éditeur, 1824.
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
WERE that nature whose self-help in diseases is believed
by physicians of the traditional school to be the incom-
parable healing art, a close imitation of which should be
the physician's highest aim, great Nature herself, i. e. the
voice of ineffable wisdom of the great Artificer of the
infinite universe, we should then feel constrained to be
guided by this infallible voice, though we might be puzzled
to understand why we physicians should, with our artificial
interference by medicines, disturb or injuriously aggravate
these presumably incomparable operations of nature's self-
help in diseases (vis medicatrix); but this is far from being
the case! That nature, whose self-help was alleged by
the traditional school of medicine to be the incomparable
healing art and the only thing worth imitating, is merely
the individual nature of the organic man, is nothing but
the instinctive, irrational, unreasoning vital force subject
to the organic laws of our body, which is ordained by
the Creator to maintain the functions and sensations of
the organism in marvellously perfect condition so long as
the man continues in good health, but was not intended nor
adapted for the restoration in the best manner of deranged
or lost health. For should our vital force have its integrity
impaired by injurious influences from without, then this
force strives instinctively and automatically to free itself
from the adventitious derangement (disease) by revolu-
tionary processes; but these very efforts are themselves
disease; they are a second different malady substituted
for the original one. The vital force, I say, produces, in
accordance with the laws of the constitution of the
-
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
xvii
organism to which it is subject, a disease of a different
sort, intended to expel the disease by which it was
attacked, which it strives to accomplish by pain, metas-
tases and so forth, but mainly by evacuations and the
sacrifice of much of the fluid and solid constituents of the
body, with difficult, often dubious, injurious, frequently
even disastrous results.
Were it not that men in all ages were aware of this
imperfection, and the not infrequent inadequacy of these
blind efforts of the instinctive unreasoning vital force in
its attempts at self-help in diseases, they would not have
longed so much nor so zealously striven to assist the
suffering vital force, so powerless to help itself efficiently,
by the employment of better remedial means in order to
terminate the morbid process in a more speedy and
sure manner, thereby restoring the wished-for health as
speedily as possible,-in a word, they would not have
exerted themselves to discover a healing art.
""
was
But as what has hitherto been termed "healing art
a mere (imperfect) imitation of those unhelpful, useless,
not infrequently injurious efforts and operations of the
instinctive, unreasoning vital force (misnamed nature)
when left to itself in disease, it will, I think, be conceded
that before me the true healing art was not discovered.
.
But that homoeopathy is this healing art, which had
hitherto been sought for in vain, its fundamental prin-
ciples teach, its performances prove.
KÖTHEN; January, 1829.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
b
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
In order to give a general notion of the treatment of
diseases pursued by the old school of medicine (allo-
pathy), I may observe that it presupposes the existence
sometimes of excess of blood (plethora-which is never
present), sometimes of morbid matters and acridities;
hence it taps off the life's blood and exerts itself either
to clear away the imaginary disease-matter or to conduct
it elsewhere (by emetics, purgatives, sialogogues, diapho-
retics, diuretics, drawing plasters, setons, issues, &c.), in
the vain belief that the disease will thereby be weakened
and materially eradicated; in place of which the patient's
sufferings are thereby increased, and by such and other
painful appliances the forces and nutritious juices indis-
pensable to the curative process are abstracted from the
organism. It assails the body with large doses of power-
ful medicines, often repeated in rapid succession for a
long time, whose long-enduring, not infrequently fright-
ful effects it knows not, and which it, purposely it would
almost seem, makes unrecognisable by the commingling
of several such unknown substances in one prescription,
and by their long-continued employment it develops in
the body new and often ineradicable medicinal diseases.
Whenever it can, too, it employs, in order to keep in
favour with its patient,¹ remedies that immediately suppress
1 For the same object the experienced allopath delights to invent a fixed
name, by preference a Greek one, for the malady, in order to make the
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
xix
and hide the morbid symptoms by opposition (contraria
contrariis) for a short time (palliatives), but that leave
the disposition to these symptoms (the disease itself)
strengthened and aggravated. It considers affections
on the exterior of the body as purely local and existing
there independently, and vainly supposes that it has cured
them when it has driven them away by means of external
remedies, so that the internal affection is thereby com-
pelled to break out on a nobler and more important part.
When it knows not what else to do for the disease
which will not yield or which grows worse, the old school
of medicine undertakes to change it into something else,
it knows not what, by means of an alterative,-for
example, by the life-undermining calomel, corrosive subli-
mate and other mercurial preparations in large doses.
0
To render (through ignorance) if not fatal, at all events
incurable, the vast majority (99%) of all diseases, namely,
those of a chronic character, by continually weakening
and tormenting the debilitated patient, already suffering
without that from his disease, and by adding new de-
structive drug diseases, this clearly seems to be the
unhallowed main business of the old school of medicine
(allopathy)—and a very easy business it is when once
one has become an adept in this pernicious practice, and
is sufficiently insensible to the stings of conscience !
And yet for all these mischievous operations the
ordinary physician of the old school can assign his
reasons, which, however, rest only on foregone conclu-
sions of his books and teachers, and on the authority
of this or that distinguished physician of the old school.
Even the most opposite and the most senseless modes of
treatment find there their defence, their authority-let
their disastrous effects speak ever so loudly against them.
It is only under the old physician who has been at last
gradually convinced, after many years of misdeeds, of the
mischievous nature of his so-called art, and who no longer
treats even the severest diseases with anything stronger
patient believe that he has long known this disease as an old acquaintance,
and hence is the fittest person to cure it.
XX
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
than plantain water mixed with strawberry syrup (i. e. with
nothing), that the smallest number are injured and die.
This non-healing art, which for many centuries has
been firmly established in full possession of the power to
dispose of the life and death of patients according to its
own good will and pleasure, and in that period has
shortened the lives of ten times as many human beings as
the most destructive wars, and rendered many millions of
patients more diseased and wretched than they were ori-
ginally this allopathy, I shall first expose somewhat
more minutely before teaching in detail its exact opposite,
the newly discovered true healing art.
As regards the latter (homœopathy) it is quite other-
wise. It can easily convince every reflecting person that
the diseases of man are not caused by any substance, any
acridity, that is to say, any disease-matter, but that they
are solely spirit-like (dynamic) derangements of the
spirit-like power (the vital force) that animates the human
body. Homœopathy knows that a cure can only take
place by the reaction of the vital force against the rightly
chosen remedy that has been ingested, and that the
cure will be certain and rapid in proportion to the
strength with which the vital force still prevails in the
patient. Hence homoeopathy avoids everything in the
slightest degree enfeebling,¹ and as much as possible every
excitation of pain, for pain also diminishes the strength,
and hence it employs for the cure ONLY those medicines
whose effects in altering and deranging (dynamically) the
health it knows accurately, and from these it selects one
whose pathogenetic power (its medicinal disease) is
capable of removing the natural disease in question by
similarity (similia similibus), and this it administers to
the patient in simple form, but in rare and minute doses
1 Homœopathy sheds not a drop of blood, administers no emetics, purga-
tives, laxatives or diaphoretics, drives off no external affection by external
means, prescribes no warm baths or medicated clysters, applies no Spanish
flies or mustard plasters, no setons, no issues, excites no ptyalism, burns not
with moxa or red-hot iron to the very bone, and so forth, but gives with its
own hand its own preparations of simple uncompounded medicines, which it
is accurately acquainted with, never subdues pain by opium, &c.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
xxi
(so small that, without occasioning pain or weakening,
they just suffice to remove the natural malady by means
of the reacting energy of the vital force), with this result:
that without weakening, injuring or torturing him in the
very least, the natural disease is extinguished, and the
patient, even whilst he is getting better, gains in
strength and thus is cured-an apparently easy but
actually troublesome and difficult business, and one re-
quiring much thought, but which restores the patient
without suffering in a short time to perfect health,-and
thus it is a salutary and blessed business.
Thus homoeopathy is a perfectly simple system of
medicine, remaining always fixed in its principles as in
its practice, which, like the doctrine whereon it is based,
if rightly apprehended will be found to be so exclusive
(and only in that way serviceable), that as the doctrine
must be accepted in its purity, so it must be purely prac-
tised, and all backward straying¹ to the pernicious routine
of the old school (whose opposite it is, as day to night) is
totally inadmissible, otherwise it ceases to deserve the
honourable name of homoeopathy.
That some misguided physicians who would wish to be
considered homeopathists, engraft some, to them more
familiar, allopathic malpractices upon their nominally
homoeopathic treatment, is owing to ignorance of the
doctrine, laziness, contempt for suffering humanity, and
ridiculous conceit; and, besides showing unpardonable
negligence in searching for the best homœopathic specific
for each case of disease, has often a base love of gain
and other sordid motives for its spring-and for its
result? that they cannot cure all important and serious
diseases (which pure and careful homoeopathy can), and
that they send many of their patients to that place
1 I am therefore sorry that I once gave the advice, savouring of allopathy,
to apply to the back in psoric diseases a resinous plaster to cause itching, and
to employ the finest electrical sparks in paralytic affections. For as both
these appliances have seldom proved of service, and have furnished the
mongrel homœopathists with an excuse for their allopathic transgressions, I
am grieved I should ever have proposed them, and I hereby solemnly retract
them for this reason also, that, since then, our homœopathic system has
advanced so near to perfection that they are now no longer required.
xxii
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
whence no one returns, whilst the friends console them-
selves with the reflection that everything (including
every hurtful allopathic process !) has been done for the
departed.
KÖTHEN; March 28th, 1833.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
CONTENTS.(a)
INTRODUCTION.
Review of the therapeutics, allopathy and palliative treatment, that
have hitherto been practised in the old school of medicine
Non-medical persons have also found the treatment on the prin-
ciple of similarity of action to be the only efficacious mode
NOTE.-Isopathy
Even some physicians of an earlier period suspected that this
was the most excellent mode of treatment.
PAGE
1
41
42
45
TEXT OF THE ORGANON
48
§1, 2. The sole mission of the physician is to cure rapidly, gently, per-
manently.
NOTE.-Not to construct theoretical systems, nor to attempt
to explain phenomena.
3,4. He must investigate what is to be cured in diseases and know
what is curative in the various medicines, in order to be able to
adapt the latter to the former, and must also understand how to
preserve the health of human beings.
5. Attention to exciting and fundamental causes and other circum-
stances, as helps to cure.
6. For the physician, the disease consists only of the totality of its
symptoms.
NOTE.-The old school's futile attempts to discover the essential
nature of disease (prima causa).
7. Whilst paying attention to those circumstances (§ 5) the physician
needs only to remove the totality of the symptoms in order to
cure the disease.
NOTE 1.-The cause that manifestly produces and maintains
the disease should be removed.
NOTE 2.-The symptomatic palliative mode of treatment
directed towards a single symptom is to be rejected.
8. If all the symptoms be eradicated, the disease is always cured
internally also.
NOTE.—This is stupidly denied by the old school.
9. During health a spiritual power (autocracy, vital force) animates
the organism and keeps it in harmonious order.
xxiv
CONTENTS.
§ 10. Without this animating, spirit-like power the organism is dead.
11. In disease, the vital force only is primarily morbidly deranged,
and expresses its sufferings (the internal change) by abnormal
sensations and functions of the organism.
NOTE. It is unnecessary for the cure to know how the vital
force produces the symptoms.
12. By the disappearance of the totality of the symptoms by the cure,
the affection of the vital force, that is to say, the whole internal
and external morbid state is also removed.
(
13. To regard those diseases that are not surgical as a peculiar dis-
tinct thing residing in the human frame is an absurdity which
has rendered allopathy so pernicious.
14. Everything of a morbid nature that is curable makes itself known
to the physician by disease-symptoms.
15. The affection of the diseased vital force and the disease-symptoms
thereby produced constitute an inseparable whole-they are one
and the same.
16. It is only by the spiritual influences of morbific noxæ that our
spirit-like vital force can become ill; and in like manner, only
by the spirit-like (dynamic) operation of medicines that it can
be again restored to health.
17. The practitioner, therefore, only needs to take away the totality
of the disease-signs, and he has removed the entire disease.
NOTES 1, 2.-Illustrative examples.
18. The totality of the symptoms is the only indication, the only guide
to the selection of a remedy.
19. The alteration of the state of the health in diseases (the disease-
symptoms) cannot be cured by the medicines otherwise than
in so far as the latter have the power of also producing altera-
tions in man's health.
20. This power of medicines to alter the state of the health can only
be ascertained by their effects on (healthy) persons.
21. The morbid symptoms that medicines produce in healthy indi-
viduals are the only thing wherefrom we can learn their disease-
curing power.
22. If experience should show that by medicines that possess similar
symptoms to the disease the latter would be most certainly and
permanently cured, we must select for the cure medicines with
similar symptoms; but should it show that the disease is most
certainly and permanently cured by opposite medicinal sym-
ptoms, we must choose for the cure medicines with opposite
symptoms.
NOTE.-The employment of medicines whose symptoms have
no actual (pathological) relation to the symptoms of the disease,
but which act on the body in a different manner, is the allopathic
method, which is to be rejected.
CONTENTS.
XXV
§ 23. By opposite medicinal symptoms (antipathic treatment) persisting
disease-symptoms are not cured.
24, 25. The other remaining method of treatment, the homœopathic,
by means of medicines with similar symptoms, is the only one
that experience shows to be always salutary.
26. This is dependent on the therapeutic law of nature that a weaker
dynamic affection in the living organism is permanently extin-
guished by one that is very similar to and stronger than it, only
differing from it in kind.
C
NOTE. This applies both to physical affections and moral
maladies.
27. The curative power of medicines, therefore, depends on the sym-
ptoms they have similar to the disease.
28, 29. Attempt to explain this therapeutic law of nature.
NOTE.-Illustration of it.
30-33. The human body is much more disposed to let its state of
health be altered by medicinal forces than by natural disease.
34, 35. The correctness of the homeopathic therapeutic law is shown
in the want of success attending every unhomoeopathic treatment
of a long-standing disease, and in this also, that two natural
diseases meeting together in the body, if they be dissimilar to
each other, do not remove or cure one another.
36. I. The older disease existing in the body, if it be equally strong
or stronger, keeps away from the patient a new dissimilar
disease.
37. Thus, under unhomœopathic treatment that is not violent, chronic
diseases remain as they were.
38. II. Or a new, stronger disease, attacking an individual already
ill, suppresses only, as long as it lasts, the old disease that
is dissimilar to it, already present in the body, but never
removes it.
39. It is just in this way that violent treatment with allopathic drugs
does not cure a chronic disease, but suppresses it only as long
as the action of the powerful medicines, which are unable to
excite any symptoms similar to the disease, lasts; after that, the
chronic disease makes its appearance as bad or worse than before.
40. III. Or the new disease, after having long acted on the body, joins
the old one that is dissimilar to it, and thence arises a double
(complex) disease; neither of these two dissimilar diseases re-
moves the other.
41. Much more frequently than in the course of nature, an artificial
disease caused by the long-continued employment of powerful,
inappropriate (allopathic) medicine in ordinary practice, asso-
ciates itself with the old natural disease, which is dissimilar to
(and therefore not curable by) the former, and the chronic
patient now becomes doubly diseased.
xxvi
CONTENTS.
§ 42. These diseases that thus complicate one another take, on account
of their dissimilarity, each the place in the organism suited
for it.
43, 44. But quite otherwise is it on the accession of a stronger disease
to a pre-existing one similar to it; in that case the latter will
be removed and cured by the former.
45. Explanation of this phenomenon.
46. Instances of chronic diseases being cured by the accidental acces-
sion of another similar but stronger disease.
47-49. In cases where diseases come together in the course of nature, it
is only one that displays similar symptoms that can remove and
cure the other, a dissimilar disease can never do this; this should
teach the physician what kind of medicines he can certainly cure
with, namely, with homoeopathic ones alone.
50. Nature has but few diseases to send to the homoeopathic relief of
other diseases, and these its remedial agents are accompanied by
many inconveniences.
51. On the other hand, the physician has innumerable remedial agents,
possessing great advantages over those.
52. From what takes place in nature, the physician may learn never
to treat diseases with other than homœopathically selected medi-
cines, whereby he will be able to cure them, which he never
could do with heterogeneous (allopathic) remedies, that never
cure, but only injure the patient.
53, 54. There are but three possible modes of employing medicines
against diseases:
1. The homœopathic, which alone is efficacious;
55. 2. The allopathic, or heteropathic;
56. 3. The antipathic (enantiopathic), or palliative.
NOTE.-Remarks on isopathy, as it is termed.
57. The method of treatment in which a remedy which displays an
opposite action (contraria contrariis) is prescribed for a single
symptom of the disease. Examples.
58. This antipathic procedure is not defective merely because it is
directed against a single symptom of the disease only, but also
because in persisting ailments, after it produces a short apparent
amelioration, real aggravation ensues.
NOTE.-Testimonies of authors to the truth of this.
59. Injurious effects of some antipathic modes of treatment.
60. Increasing the dose at every repetition of a palliative never cures
a chronic affection, but does still more harm,
61. Whence physicians ought to have inferred the utility of an oppo-
site and only good mode of treatment, to wit, the homoeo-
pathic.
62. The reason of the injurious nature of the palliative, and of the
sole efficacy of the homoeopathic employment of medicines
CONTENTS.
xxvii
§ 63. Depends upon the difference between the primary action that
takes place under the influence of every medicine, and the reac-
tion or secondary action subsequently effected by the living
organism (the vital force).
64. Explanation of the primary and secondary actions.
65. Examples of both.
66. From the smallest homoeopathic doses of medicine employed in
treatment, the secondary action of the vital force merely shows
itself in the restoration of the balance of health.
67. These truths explain the salutary character of the homœopathic
treatment, as also the perversity of the antipathic (palliative)
method.
NOTE.-Cases in which the antipathic employment of medi-
cines is alone admissible.
68. How is the efficacy of the homeopathic system proved by these
truths?
69. How is the hurtfulness of the antipathic treatment proved by
these truths?
NOTE 1.-Opposite sensations do not neutralise each other in
the human sensorium; they are not, therefore, like opposite sub-
stances in chemistry.
NOTE 2.-Illustrative example.
70. Short summary of the homœopathic system of medicine.
71. The three points necessary for curing: (1) the investigation of the
disease; (2) the investigation of the effects of the medicines;
and (3) their appropriate employment.
72. General survey of diseases-acute, chronic.
73. Acute diseases that attack single individuals, sporadic, epidemic,
acute miasms.
74. The worst kinds of chronic diseases are those produced by the
unskilfulness of allopathic physicians.
75. These are the most incurable.
76. It is only when the vital force is still sufficiently powerful, that
the injury can then be repaired, often only after a long time,
if the original disease be at the same time homœopathically
eradicated.
77. Diseases inappropriately named chronic.
78. Chronic diseases proper; they all arise from chronic miasms.
79. Syphilis and sycosis.
80, 81. Psora; it is the mother of all true chronic diseases except
the syphilitic and sycotic.
NOTE.-Names of diseases in the ordinary pathology.
82. Among the more specific remedies discovered for these chronic
miasms, especially for psora, the selection of those for the cure
of each individual case of chronic disease is to be conducted all
the more carefully.
xxviii
CONTENTS.
§ 83. Requisites for apprehending the picture of the disease.
84-99. Instructions to the physician for investigating and tracing
the picture of the disease.
100-102. Investigation of the epidemic diseases in particular.
103. In like manner must the fundamental cause of (non-syphilitic)
chronic diseases be investigated and the great entire picture of
psora be displayed.
104. Utility of noting down in writing the picture of the disease, for
the purpose of curing, and in the progress of the treatment.
NOTE.-How the old school physicians go about the investiga-
tion of the morbid state.
105-114. Preliminaries to be attended to in investigating the pure
effects of medicines on healthy individuals. Primary action.
Secondary action.
115. Alternating actions of medicines.
116, 117. Idiosyncrasies.
118, 119. The action of every medicine differs from that of every
other.
NOTE.-There can be no such things as surrogates.
120. Every medicine, therefore, must be carefully proved to ascertain
the peculiarity of its special effects.
121–140. Mode of proceeding when we make trial of them on other
persons.
141. The experiments of the healthy physician with medicines upon
himself are the best.
142. The investigation of the pure effects of medicines in diseases is
difficult.
143–145. Only from such investigations of the pure effects of medi-
cines on healthy persons can a real materia medica be formed.
146. The most appropriate therapeutic employment of medicines known
in their pure effects.
147. The medicine most homoeopathically corresponding is the most
suitable, is the specific remedy.
148. Explanation of how a homœopathic cure is probably effected.
149. The homœopathic cure of a disease that has occurred quickly is
quickly effected; that of chronic diseases, however, demands
proportionally more time.
NOTE.-Difference betwixt pure homoeopathists and the mongrel
sect.
150. Slight ailments.
151. Important diseases have a number of symptoms.
152. For those with numerous striking symptoms a homœopathic
remedy can be more certainly found.
153. What kind of symptoms ought one chiefly to attend to in the
choice of a remedy?
CONTENTS.
xxix
§ 154. A remedy as homœopathic as it is possible to be cures without
much disturbance.
155. Cause of the freedom from disturbance of such cures.
156. Cause of the slight exceptions to this.
157–160. The medicinal disease very similar, but somewhat superior
in strength, to the original disease, termed also homoeopathic
aggravation.
161. In chronic (psoric) diseases the homeopathic aggravations from
(antipsoric) homœopathic medicines occur during a period of
several days, from time to time.
162-171. Rules for treatment when the supply of known medicines
is too small to allow a perfect homœopathic remedy to be dis-
covered.
172-184. Rules for the treatment of diseases with too few symptoms:
one-sided diseases.
185-203. Treatment of diseases with local symptoms; their external
treatment is always injurious.
204, 205. All chronic affections and diseases properly so called (that are
not merely produced and maintained by a bad mode of living)
must be cured only from within, by the homœopathic medicines
appropriate for the miasm that lies at their root.
206. Preliminary investigation of the miasm that lies at their root, of
the simple miasm or its complications with a second (or even
with a third).
207. Inquiry into the treatments previously employed.
208, 209. The other preliminary inquiries necessary for the apprehen-
sion of the morbid picture of the chronic disease.
210-230. Treatment of the so-called mental or emotional diseases.
231, 232. The intermittent and alternating diseases.
233, 234. The periodical intermittent diseases.
235-244. The intermittent fevers.
245–251. Mode of using the remedies.
NOTE.-Repetition of the doses.
252-256. Signs of commencing improvement.
257,258. False predilection for favourite remedies and unjustifiable
aversion to other medicines.
259-261. Regimen in chronic diseases.
NOTE.-Injurious things in the habits of life.
262, 263. Diet in acute diseases.
264-266.-Selection of the most energetic, most genuine medicines.
NOTE.-Change effected in some substances in their prepara-
tion for food.
267. Preparation of the most powerful and most durable forms of medi-
cines from plants that can be obtained fresh.
268. Dry vegetable substances.
NOTE.-Preparation of powders so that they shall keep.
XXX
CONTENTS.
§ 269-271. The mode of preparing crude medicinal substances peculiar
to homœopathy, so as to develop their curative powers to
the utmost.
272–274. Only one single, simple medicine should be given to the
patient at one time.
275-287. Strength of the doses for homœopathic use-how it may be
increased or diminished. Their dynamization.
288-292. What parts of the body are more or less susceptible to the
influence of the medicines ?
Title.
NOTE.-Advantages of the olfaction of highly potentized medi-
cines over every other method of taking them.
293, 294. Animal magnetism (mesmerism). Its positive and negative
employment.
APPENDIX.
INTRODUCTION.
Heading
Allopathy
Variations in different editions
Tape-worm
Homœopathic therapeutic rule
Homœopathy
201
ib.
ib.
204
ib.
206
Similia similibus curenter
ib.
Examples of involuntary homœopathic cures in old-school practice 207
Veratrum album in cholera
ib.
208
Sodorifics in sweating sickness
Purgatives in diarrhoea
Tobacco
ib.
ib.
Agaricus muscarius in epilepsy
Anise-seed in flatulent colic
Achillea millefolium in hemorrhages
Uva ursi in purulent urine
Conium in asthma, whooping-cough, dysuria and amaurosis
PAGE
. 201
Colchicum in dropsy and asthma
Jalap in colic
Senna in colic
Dictamnus in leucorrhoea
ཋ ཧྨ ཋ ཋ ཋ དྷྲྀ རྟྲྀ ཀླི ལིཾ
209
ib.
210
211
CONTENTS.
xxxi
PAGE
211
ib.
ib.
212
Nux moschata in fainting fits
ib.
Rose water in ophthalmia
ib.
Rhus in vesicular eruption and paralysis
Dulcamara in diseases from chill, convulsions, eczema, herpes 213
214
Solanum nigrum in dropsy
ib.
Sambucus in dropsy.
ib.
215
ib.
ib.
Clematis in cutaneous disease.
Euphorbia in dropsy
Euphrasia in lippitudo
Scilla in pleurisy
memory
Stramonium in delusions, convulsions, loss of memory
Turpentine in dropsy and sciatica
Tea in gastralgia, convulsions and exhaustion
Cinchona in gastralgia, vomiting, diarrhoea, syncope, jaun-
dice, depression of vital powers, indigestion, anorexia
Ipecacuanha in hæmorrhages, spasmodic asthma, diarrhæa
Ignatia in convulsions
Arnica in contusions.
dysphagia, cough
Camphor in low nervous fevers and influenza
Aconite in pains of limbs and joints
Belladonna in hydrophobia, insanity, amaurosis.
Hyoscyamus in epilepsy, agrypnia, insanity, vertigo, ptosis,
Wine in inflammatory fevers, phrenitis, delirium .
Tea in anxiety and palpitation
•
Moschus in spasmodic asthma.
Cow-pox and smallpox
•
Opium in convulsions, sopor, lethargic fever, epilepsy, con-
stipation, ileus
Sabina in uterine hæmorrhage
·
•
Cantharides in strangury and gonorrhoea
Sulphur in dysentery, hæmorrhoids, itch, asphyxia
Nitric acid in salivation and ulceration of fauces.
Potash in tetanus
Arsenic in cancer, plague buboes, carbuncle, ague, angina
pectoris
Cuprum in epilepsy
Stannum in phthisis and gastralgia
Plumbum in constipation, ileus, hypochondriasis.
Mercury in inflammation of mouth, imbecility, salivation,
sore-throat, aphthæ, caries
•
216
ib.
217
ib.
218
219
221
ib.
222
ib.
223
226
ib.
ib.
227
228
229
ib.
230
231
ib.
232
233
Electricity in ague, convulsions, sciatica, ophthalmia, varices 235
Hot baths in fever and enoephalitis
237
xxxii
CONTENTS.
ORGANON.
Concordance of all editions
Title.
Variations in different editions
Vital force
Cinchona fever
Later explanation of the mode of homoeopathic cure
Itch as a remedy
Isopathy, psorin
Palliative treatment
Local treatment of chancre
Sycosis
Typical diseases.
Prophylaxis of scarlatina
Sydenham on individuality of diseases
Directions for proving medicines
Repetition of dose in proving
Nenning's symptoms
Alternation of medicines
External remedies
Alternating morbid states.
Repetition of medicines in disease
Latest teachings on giving and repeating medicines
Hahnemann's posology
Previous directions for repeating medicines
Solutions of medicines
Dynamization of medicines
Preparation of dilutions or potencies
Ægidi's double medicines
Homœopathic aggravations
Increased sensitiveness in disease
Different dilutions for different medicines
Relative power of concentrated and divided doses
Dilutions beyond the thirtieth
Allowable non-homoeopathic remedies
•
•
•
•
·
•
PAGE
238
242
ib.
245
247
249
251
254
255
268
269
272
273
ib.
275
276
278
282
283
284
285
287
291
292
294
295
297
ib.
298
299
300
302
303
ib.
INTRODUCTION. (a)
Review of the therapeutics, allopathy(«) and palliative
treatment that have hitherto been practised in the
old school of medicine.
As long as men have existed they have been liable,
individually or collectively, to diseases from physical
or moral causes. In a rude state of nature but few
remedial agents were required, as the simple mode of
living admitted of but few diseases; with the civilisation
of mankind in the state, on the contrary, the occasions
of diseases and the necessity for medical aid increased
in equal proportion. But ever since that time (soon after
Hippocrates, therefore, for 2500 years) men have occupied
themselves with the treatment of the ever increasing multi-
plicity of diseases, who, led astray by their vanity, sought
by reasoning and guessing to excogitate the mode of
furnishing this aid. Innumerable and dissimilar ideas
respecting the nature of diseases and their remedies
sprang from so many dissimilar brains, and the theo-
rectical views these gave rise to they called systems,
each of which was at variance with the rest and self-
contradictory. Each of these subtile expositions at
first threw the readers into stupefied amazement at the in-
comprehensible wisdom contained in it, and attracted to
the system-monger a number of followers, who re-echoed
his unnatural sophistry, to none of whom, however, was
it of the slightest use in enabling them to cure better,
until a new system, often diametrically opposed to the
first, thrust that aside, and in its turn gained a short-lived
1
2
INTRODUCTION.
renown.
None of them, however, was in consonance with
nature and experience; they were mere theoretical webs,
woven by cunning intellects out of pretended con-
sequences, which could not be made use of in prac-
tice, in the treatment at the sick-bed, on account of their
excessive subtilty and repugnance to nature, and only
served for empty disputations.
Simultaneously, but quite independent of all these
theories, there sprung up a mode of treatment with
mixtures of unknown medicinal substances for forms
of disease arbitrarily set up, and directed towards some
material object completely at variance with nature and
experience, hence, as may be supposed, with a bad result
-such is old medicine, allopathy as it is termed.(«)
Without disparaging the services which many physicians
have rendered to the sciences auxiliary to medicine, to
natural philosophy and chemistry, to natural history in its
various branches, and to that of man in particular, to
anthropology, physiology and anatomy, &c., I shall occupy
myself here with the practical part of medicine only, with
the healing art itself, in order to show how it is that
diseases have hitherto been so imperfectly treated. Far
beneath my notice is that mechanical routine of treating
precious human life according to the prescription manuals,
the continual publication of which shows, alas! how
frequently they are still used. I pass it by unnoticed,
as a despicable practice of the lowest class of ordinary
practitioners. I speak merely of the medical art as
hitherto practised, which, pluming itself on its antiquity,
imagines itself to possess a scientific character.
The partisans of the old school of medicine flattered
themselves that they could justly claim for it alone the
title of "rational medicine," because they alone sought
for and strove to remove the cause of disease, and followed
the method employed by nature in diseases.
Tolle causam ! they cried incessantly. But they went
no further than this empty exclamation. They only
fancied that they could discover the cause of disease
they did not discover it, however, as it is not perceptible
;
INTRODUCTION.
со
and not discoverable. For as far the greatest number
of diseases are of dynamic (spiritual) origin and dynamic
(spiritual) nature, their cause is therefore not perceptible
to the senses; so they exerted themselves to imagine
one, and from a survey of the parts of the normal, inani-
mate human body (anatomy), compared with the visible
changes of the same internal parts in persons who had
died of diseases (pathological anatomy), as also from what
they could deduce from a comparison of the phenomena
and functions in healthy life (physiology) with their
endless alterations in the innumerable morbid states
(pathology, semeiotics), to draw conclusions relative to
the invisible process whereby the changes which take place
in the inward being of man in diseases are effected-a
dim picture of the imagination, which theoretical medi-
cine regarded as its prima causa morbi;¹ and thus it was
at one and the same time the proximate cause of the
disease, and the internal essence of the disease, the disease
itself—although, as sound human reason teaches us,
the cause of a thing or of an event, can never be
1 It would have been much more consonant with sound human reason and
with the nature of things, had they, in order to be able to cure a disease,
regarded the originating cause as the causa morbi, and endeavoured to discover
that, and thus been enabled successfully to employ the mode of treatment
which had shown itself useful in maladies having the same exciting cause, in
those also of a similar origin, as, for example, the same mercury is efficacious
in an ulcer of the glans after impure coitus, as in all previous venereal
chancres―if, I say, they had discovered the exciting cause of all other (non-
venereal) chronic diseases to be an infection at one period or another with
the itch miasm (psora), and had found for all these a common method of
treatment, regard being had for the peculiarities of each individual case,
whereby all and each of these chronic diseases might have been cured, then
might they with justice have boasted that in the treatment of chronic
diseases they had in view the only available and useful causa morborum chroni-
corum (non venereorum), and with this as a basis they might have treated
such diseases with the best results. But during these many centuries they
were unable to cure the millions of chronic diseases, because they knew not
their origin in the psoric miasm (which was first discovered and afterwards
provided with a suitable plan of treatment by homœopathy), and yet they
vaunted that they alone kept in view the prima causa of these diseases in
their treatment, and that they alone treated rationally, although they had
not the slightest conception of the only useful knowledge of their psoric
origin and consequently they bungled the treatment of all chronic diseases!
4
INTRODUCTION.
at the same time the thing or the event itself. How
could they then, without deceiving themselves, consider
this imperceptible internal essence as the object to be
treated, and prescribe for it medicines whose curative
powers were likewise generally unknown to them, and
even give several such unknown medicines mixed together
in what are termed prescriptions?
1
But this sublime problem, the discovery, namely,
a priori, of an internal invisible cause of disease, resolved
itself, at least with the more astute physicians of the old
school, into a search, under the guidance of the symptoms
it is true, for what might be supposed to be the probable
general character of the case of disease before them;¹
whether it was spasm, or debility, or paralysis, or fever,
or inflammation, or induration, or obstruction of this or
that part, or excess of blood (plethora), deficiency or excess
of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen or nitrogen in the juices,
exaltation or depression of the functions of the arterial,
venous or capillary system, change in the relative pro-
portion of the factors of sensibility, irritability or repro-
duction ?—conjectures that have been dignified by the
followers of the old school with the title of causal indica-
tion, and considered to be the only possible rationality in
medicine; but which were assumptions, too fallacious and
hypothetical to prove of any practical utility—incapable,
even had they been well grounded, of indicating the most
appropriate remedy for a case of disease; flattering,
indeed, to the vanity of the learned theorist, but usually
leading astray when used as guides to practice, and
wherein there was evidenced more of ostentation than of
an earnest search for the curative indication.
And how often has it happened that, for example,
spasm or paralysis seemed to be in one part of the
organism, while in another part inflammation was appar-
ently present!
1 Every physician who treats disease according to such general characters,
however he may affect to claim the name of homoeopathist, is and ever will
remain in fact a generalising allopath, for without the most minute indi-
vidualisation, homoeopathy is not conceivable. («)
INTRODUCTION.
5
.
Or, on the other hand, whence are the certain remedies
for each of these pretended general characters to be
derived ? Those that would certainly be of benefit could
be none other than the specific medicines, that is, those
whose action is homogeneous¹ to the morbid irritation;
whose employment, however, is denounced and forbidden 2
by the old school as highly injurious, because observa-
tion has shown that in consequence of the receptivity for
homogeneous irritation being so highly increased in
diseases, such medicines in the usual large doses are
dangerous to life. The old school never dreamt of smaller,
and of extremely small doses. Accordingly no attempt
was made to cure, in the direct (the most natural) way,
by means of homogeneous, specific medicines; nor could
it be done, as the effects of most of medicines were, and
continued to remain, unknown, and even had they been
known it would have been impossible to hit on the right
medicine with such generalising views as were enter-
tained.
However, perceiving that it was more consistent with
reason to seek for another path, a straight one if possible,
rather than to take circuitous courses, the old school of
medicine believed it might cure diseases in a direct
manner,() by the removal of the (imaginary) material cause
of disease for to physicians of the ordinary school, while
investigating and forming a judgment upon a disease,
and not less while seeking for the curative indication, it
was next to impossible to divest themselves of these mate-
rialistic ideas, and to regard the nature of the spiritual-
corporeal organism as such a highly potentialised entity,
that its sensational and functional vital changes, which
1 Now termed homœopathic.
2 "Where experience showed the curative power of homœopathically
acting remedies, whose mode of action could not be explained, the difficulty
was avoided by calling them specific, and further investigation was stifled
by this actually unmeaning word. The homogeneous excitant remedies, the
specific (homœopathic) medicines, however, had long previously been pro-
hibited as of very injurious influence."-Rau, On the Value of the Homœo-
pathic Method of Treatment, Heidelberg, 1824, pp. 101, 102.
6
INTRODUCTION.
are called diseases, must be produced and effected chiefly,
if not solely, by dynamic (spiritual()) influences, and could
not be effected in any other way.
The old school regarded all those matters which were
altered by the disease, those abnormal matters that occurred
in congestions, as well as those that were excreted, as
disease-producers, or at least on account of their sup-
posed reacting power, as disease-maintainers, and this
latter notion prevails to this day.
Hence they dreamed of effecting causal cures by
endeavouring to remove these imaginary and presumed
material causes of the disease. Hence their assiduous
evacuation of the bile by vomiting in bilious fevers;
their emetics in cases of so-called stomach derange-
ments; their diligent purging away of the mucus, the
2
1
1 The estimable Hofrath Dr. Rau (loc. cit., p. 176), at a time when not
perfectly conversant with homœopathy, but firmly convinced of the dynamic
cause of these fevers, cured them without employing any evacuating remedy,
by means of one or two small doses of homoeopathic remedies, two very
remarkable cases of which he relates in his book.
2 In a case of sudden derangement of the stomach, with constant dis-
gusting eructations with the taste of the vitiated food, generally accom-
panied by depression of spirits, cold hands and feet, &c., the ordinary phy-
sician has hitherto been in the habit of attacking only the degenerated
contents of the stomach; a powerful emetic should clean it out completely.
This object was generally attained by tartar emetic, with or without ipecacu-
anha. Does the patient, however, immediately after this become well, brisk
and cheerful? Oh no! Such a derangement of the stomach is usually of
dynamic origin, caused by mental disturbance (grief, fright, vexation), a
chill, over-exertion of the mind or body immediately after eating, often after
even a moderate meal. Those two remedies are not suitable for removing
this dynamic derangement, and just as little is the revolutionary vomiting
they produce. Moreover, tartar emetic and ipecacuanha, from their other
peculiar pathogenetic powers, prove of further injury to the patient's health,
and derange the biliary secretion; so that if the patient be not very robust,
he must feel ill for several days from the effects of this pretended causal
treatment, notwithstanding all this violent expulsion of the whole contents
of the stomach. If the patient, however, in place of taking such violent
and always(«) hurtful evacuant drugs, smell only a single time at a globule the
size of a mustard seed, moistened with highly diluted pulsatilla juice,
whereby the derangement of his health in general and of his stomach in
particular will certainly be removed, in two hours he is quite well; and if
the eructation recur once more, it consists of tasteless and inodorous air;
the contents of the stomach cease to be vitiated, and at the next meal he has
INTRODUCTION.
7
2
lumbrici and the ascarides in children who are pale-faced
and who suffer from ravenous appetite, bellyache, and
enlarged abdomen; their venesections in cases of hæmor-
rhage; and more especially all their varieties of blood-
1
regained his full usual appetite; he is quite well and lively. This is true
causal medication; the former is only an imaginary one and has an injurious
effect on the patient.
Even a stomach overloaded with indigestible food never requires a medi-
cinal emetic. In such a case nature is competent to rid herself of the excess
in the best way through the oesophagus, by means of nausea, sickness and
spontaneous vomiting, assisted, it may be, by mechanical irritation of the
palate and fauces, and by this means the accessory medicinal effects of the
emetic drugs are avoided; a small quantity of coffee expedites the passage
downwards of what remains in the stomach.
But if, after excessive overloading of the stomach, the irritability of the
stomach is not sufficient to promote spontaneous vomiting, or is lost alto-
gether, so that the tendency thereto is extinguished, while there are at the
same time great pains in the epigastrium, in such a paralysed state of the
stomach, an emetic medicine would only have the effect of producing a
dangerous or fatal inflammation of the intestines; whereas a small quantity
of strong infusion of coffee, frequently administered, would dynamically
exalt the sunken irritability of the stomach, and put it in a condition to
expel its contents, be they ever so great, either upwards or downwards. So
here also the pretended causal treatment is out of place.
-
Even the acrid gastric acid, to eructations of which patients with chronic
diseases are not infrequently subject, may be to-day violently evacuated
by means of an emetic, with great suffering, and yet all in vain, for to-
morrow or some days later it is replaced by similar acrid gastric acid, and
then usually in larger quantities; whereas it goes away by itself when its
dynamic cause is removed by a very small dose of a high dilution of sulphuric
acid, or still better, if it is of frequent recurrence, by the employment of
minutest doses of antipsoric remedies corresponding in similarity to the rest
of the symptoms also. And of a similar character are many of the pre-
tended causal cures of the old-school physicians, whose main effort it is, by
means of tedious operations, troublesome to themselves and injurious to
their patients, to clear away the material product of the dynamic derange-
ment; whereas if they perceived the dynamic source of the affection, and
annihilated it and its products homœopathically, they would thereby effect
a rational cure.
¹ Conditions dependent solely on a psoric taint, and easily curable by mild
(dynamic) antipsoric remedies without emetics or purgatives.
2 Notwithstanding that almost all morbid hæmorrhages depend on a
dynamic derangement of the vital force (state of health), yet the old-school
physicians consider their cause to be excess of blood, and cannot refrain from
bleeding in order to draw off the supposed superabundance of this vital fluid;
the palpable evil consequences of which procedure, however, such as prostra-
tion of the strength, and the tendency, or actual transition, to the typhoid
8
INTRODUCTION.
lettings,¹ their main remedy in inflammations, which they
state they ascribe to the malignancy of the disease, which they are then often
unable to overcome-in fine, they imagine, even when the patient does not
recover, that their treatment has been in conformity with their axiom,
causam tolle, and that, according to their mode of speaking, they have done
everything in their power for the patient, let the result be what it may.
¹ Although there probably never was a drop of blood too much in the
living human body, yet the old-school practitioners consider an imaginary
excess of blood as the main material cause of all hæmorrhages and inflamma-
tions, which they must remove and drain off by venesections, cupping and
leeches. This they hold to be a rational mode of treatment, causal medica-
tion. In general inflammatory fevers, in acute pleurisy, they even regard
the coagulable lymph in the blood-the buffy coat, as it is termed as the
materia peccans, which they endeavour to get rid of, if possible, by repeated
venesections, notwithstanding that this coat often becomes more consistent
and thicker at every repetition of the bloodletting. They thus often bleed
the patient nearly to death, when the inflammatory fever will not subside, in
order to remove this buffy coat or the imaginary plethora, without suspecting
that the inflammatory blood is only the product of the acute fever, of the
morbid, immaterial (dynamic) inflammatory irritation, and that the latter is
the sole cause of the great disturbance in the vascular system, and may be
removed by the smallest dose of a homogeneous (homœopathic) medicine, as,
for instance, by a small globule of the decillion-fold dilution of aconite juice,
with abstinence from vegetable acids, so that the most violent pleuritic fever,
with all its alarming concomitants, is changed into health and cured, without
the least abstraction of blood and without any antiphlogistic remedy, in a few
—at the most in twenty-four-hours (a small quantity of blood drawn from a
vein by way of experiment then shows no traces of buffy coat); whereas
another patient similarly affected, and treated on the rational principles of
the old school, if, after repeated bleedings, with great difficulty and un-
speakable sufferings he escape for the nonce with life, he often has still many
months to drag through before he can support his emaciated body on his
legs, if in the mean time (as often happens from such maltreatment) he be
not carried off by typhoid fever, leucophlegmasia or pulmonary phthisis.
Anyone who has felt the tranquil pulse of a man an hour before the occur-
rence of the rigor that always precedes an attack of acute pleurisy, will not be
able to restrain his amazement if told two hours later, after the hot stage has
commenced, that the enormous plethora present urgently requires repeated
venesections, and will naturally inquire by what magic power could the
pounds of blood that must now be drawn off have been conjured into the
blood-vessels of this man within these two hours, which but two hours pre-
viously he had felt beating in such a tranquil manner?
Not a single
drachm more of blood can now be circulating in those vessels than existed
when he was in good health, nor yet two hours ago!
Accordingly the allopathic physician with his venesections draws from the
patient labouring under acute fever no oppressive superabundance of blood,
as that cannot possibly be present; he only robs him of what is indis-
pensable to life and recovery, the normal quantity of blood and consequently
INTRODUCTION.
9
now, following the example of a well-known bloodthirsty
Parisian physician (as a flock of sheep follow the bell-
wether even into the butcher's slaughter-house), imagine
to encounter in almost every morbidly affected part of the
body, and feel themselves bound to remove by the applica-
tion of often a fatal number of leeches. (a) They believe that
by so doing they obey the true causal indications, and treat
disease in a rational manner. The adherents of the old
school, moreover, believe that by putting a ligature on
polypi, by cutting out, or artificially exciting suppuration
by means of local irritants in, indolent glandular swellings,
by enucleating encysted tumours (steatoma and meliceria)
by their operations for aneurysm and lacrimal and anal
fistula, by removing with the knife scirrhous tumours of
the breast, by amputating a limb affected with necrosis,
&c., they cure the patient radically, and that their treat-
ment is directed against the cause of the disease; and
they also think, when they employ their repellent remedies,
dry up old running ulcers in the legs with astringent
applications of oxyde of lead, copper or zinc (aided always
by the simultaneous administration of purgatives, which
of strength-a great loss which no physician's power can replace!—and yet
he vainly imagines that he has conducted the treatment in conformity to his
(misunderstood) axiom, causam tolle; whereas it is impossible that the causa
morbi in this case can be an excess of blood, which is not present; but the
sole true causa morbi was a morbid, dynamical, inflammatory irritation of the
circulating system, as is proved by the rapid and permanent cure of this and
every similar case of general inflammatory fever by one or two inconceiv-
ably minute doses of aconite juice, which removes such an irritation homœo-
pathically.
The old school errs equally in the treatment of local inflammations with its
topical bloodlettings, more especially with the quantities of leeches which are
now applied according to the maniacal principles of Broussais. The pallia-
tive amelioration that at first ensues from the treatment is far from being
crowned by a rapid and perfect cure; on the contrary, the weak and ailing
state of the parts thus treated (frequently also of the whole body), which
always remains, sufficiently shows the error that is committed in attributing
the local inflammation to a local plethora, and how sad are the consequences
of such abstractions of blood; whereas this purely dynamic, apparently local,
inflammatory irritation, can be rapidly and permanently removed by an
equally small dose of aconite, or, according to circumstances, of belladonna,
and the whole disease annihilated and cured, without such unjustifiable
shedding of blood.
10
INTRODUCTION.
merely debilitate, but have no effect on the fundamental
dyscrasia), cauterise chancres, destroy condylomata locally,
drive off itch from the skin with ointments of sulphur,
oxyde of lead, mercury or zinc, suppress ophthalmia with
solutions of lead or zinc, and drive away tearing pains
from the limbs by means of opodeldoc, hartshorn liniment
or fumigations with cinnabar or amber; in every case they
think they have removed the affection, conquered the
disease, and pursued a rational treatment directed towards
the cause. But what is the result? The metastatic
affections that sooner or later, but inevitably appear,
caused by this mode of treatment (but which they pretend
are entirely new diseases), which are always worse than
the original malady, sufficiently prove their error, and
might and should open their eyes to the deeper-seated,
immaterial nature of the disease, and its dynamic
(spiritual) origin, which can only be removed by dynamic
means.
.
A favourite idea of the ordinary school of medicine,
until recent (would that I could not say the most recent !)
times, was that of morbific matters (and acridities) in
diseases, excessively subtile though they might be thought
to be, which must be expelled from the blood-vessels and
lymphatics, through the exhalents, skin, urinary apparatus
or salivary glands, through the tracheal and bronchial
glands in the form of expectoration, from the stomach
and bowels by vomiting and purging, in order that the
body might be freed from the material cause that pro-
duced the disease, and a radical causal treatment(a) be thus
carried out.(a)
By cutting holes in the diseased body, which were
converted into chronic ulcers kept up for years by the
introduction of foreign substances (issues, setons), they
sought to draw off the materia peccans from the (always
only dynamically) diseased body, just as one lets a dirty
fluid run out of a barrel through the tap-hole. By means
also of perpetual fly-blisters and the application of meze-
reum, they thought to draw away the bad humours and to
M
INTRODUCTION.
11
cleanse the diseased body from all morbific matters-but
they only weakened it, so as generally to render it incur-
able, by all these senseless unnatural processes.(«)
I admit that it was more convenient for the weakness
of humanity to assume that, in the diseases they were
called on to cure, there existed some morbific material of
which the mind might form a conception (more particu-
larly as the patients readily lent themselves to such a
notion), because in that case the practitioner had nothing
further to care about than to procure a good supply of
remedies for purifying the blood and humours, excit-
ing diuresis and diaphoresis, promoting expectoration,
and scouring out the stomach and bowels. Hence,
in all the works on Materia Medica, from Dioscorides
down to the latest books on this subject, there is almost
nothing said about the special peculiar action of indi-
vidual medicines; but, besides an account of their sup-
posed utility in various nosological names of diseases, it
is merely stated whether they are diuretic, diaphoretic,
expectorant or emmenagogue, and more particularly
whether they produce evacuation of the stomach and
bowels upwards or downwards; because all the aspira-
tions and efforts of the practitioner have ever been chiefly
directed to cause the expulsion of a material morbific
matter, and of sundry (fictitious) acridities, which it was
imagined were the cause of diseases.
-
S
These were, however, all idle dreams, unfounded
assumptions and hypotheses, cunningly devised for the
convenience of therapeutics, as it was expected the easiest
way of performing a cure would be to remove the
material morbific matters (si modo essent !).
But the essential nature of diseases and their cure
will not adapt themselves to such fantasies, nor to the
convenience of medical men; to humour such stupid base-
less hypotheses diseases will not cease to be (spiritual)
dynamic derangements of our spirit-like vital principle in
sensations and functions, that is to say, immaterial derange-
ments of our state of health.
The causes of our maladies cannot be material, since the
S
12
INTRODUCTION.
least foreign material substance,¹ however mild it may ap-
pear to us, if introduced into our blood-vessels, is promptly
ejected by the vital force, as though it were a poison; or
when this does not happen, death ensues. If even the mi-
nutest splinter penetrates a sensitive part of our organism,
the vital principle every where present in our body never
rests until it is removed by pain, fever, suppuration or
gangrene. And can it be supposed that in a case of cuta-
neous disease of twenty years' standing, for instance, this
indefatigably active vital principle will quietly endure the
presence of such an injurious, foreign, material exanthe-
matous substance, such as a herpetic, a scrofulous, a gouty
acridity, &c., in the fluids of the body? Did any noso-
logist ever see with corporeal eyes such a morbific matter,
to warrant him in speaking so confidently about it, and
in founding a system of medical treatment upon it?
Has anyone ever succeeded in displaying to view the
matter of gout or the poison of scrofula?
2
Even when the application of a material substance to
the skin, or to a wound, has propagated diseases by
infection, who can prove (what is so often maintained in
works on pathology) that some material portion of this
substance has penetrated into our fluids or been absorbed ?²
The most careful and prompt washing of the genitals does
not protect the system from infection with the venereal
chancrous disease. The slightest breath of air emanating
from the body of a person affected with smallpox will
suffice to produce this horrible disease in a healthy child.
What ponderable quantity of material substance could
have been absorbed into the fluids, in order to develop,
¹ Life was endangered by injecting a little pure water into a vein. (Vide
Mullen, quoted by Birch in the History of the Royal Society.)
Atmospheric air injected into the blood-vessels caused death.
(Vide
J. H. Voigt, Magazin für den neuesten Zustand der Naturkunde, i, iii,
p. 25.)
Even the mildest fluids introduced into the veins endangered life. (Vide
Autenrieth, Physiologie, ii, § 784.)
2
? A girl in Glasgow, eight years of age, having been bit by a mad dog, the
surgeon immediately cut the piece clean out, and yet thirty-six days after-
wards she was seized with hydrophobia, which killed her in two days. (Med.
Comment. of Edinb., Dec. 2, vol. ii, 1793.)
INTRODUCTION.
13
in the first of these instances, a tedious dyscrasia (syphi-
lis), which when uncured is only extinguished with the
remotest period of life, with death; in the last, a disease
(smallpox) accompanied by almost general suppuration,
and often rapidly fatal? In these and all similar cases
is it possible to entertain the idea of a material mor-
bific matter being introduced into the blood? A letter
written in the sick-room at a great distance has often
communicated the same contagious disease to the person
who read it. In this instance, can the notion of a
material morbific matter having penetrated into the fluids
be admitted? But what need is there of all such proofs ?
How often has it happened that an irritating word has
brought on a dangerous bilious fever; a superstitious
prediction of death has caused the fatal catastrophe at the
very time announced; the abrupt communication of sad
or excessively joyful news has occasioned sudden death?
In these cases, where is the material morbific principle that
entered in substance into the body, there to produce and
keep up the disease, and without the material expulsion
and ejection of which a radical cure were impossible ?
The champions of this clumsy doctrine of morbific
1
¹ In order to account for the large quantity of putrid excrementitious
matter and fœtid discharge often met with in diseases, and to be able to
represent them as the material substance that excites and keeps up disease-
although, when infection occurs, nothing perceptible in the shape of miasm,
nothing material, could have penetrated into the body-recourse was had to
the hypothesis, that the matter of infection, be it ever so minute, acts in the
body like a ferment, bringing the fluids into a like state of corruption, and
thus changing them into a similar morbific ferment which constantly in-
creases with the disease and keeps it up. But by what all-potent and all-
wise purifying draughts will you purge and cleanse the human fluids from
this ever reproductive ferment, from this mass of imaginary morbific matter,
and that so perfectly, that there shall not remain a particle of such morbific
ferment, which, according to this hypothesis, must ever again, as at first,
transform and corrupt the fluids to new morbific matter? Were that so it
would evidently be impossible to cure these diseases in your way!-See how
all hypotheses, be they ever so ingeniously framed, lead to the most palpable
absurdities when they are not founded on truth!-The most deeply rooted
syphilis may be cured, after the removal of the psora with which it is often
complicated, by one or two small doses of the decillion fold diluted and poten-
tised solution of mercury, whereby the general syphilitic taint of the fluids is
for ever (dynamically) annihilated and removed.
14
INTRODUCTION.
matters ought to be ashamed that they have so incon-
siderately overlooked and failed to appreciate the spiritual
nature of life, and the spiritual dynamic power of the
exciting causes of diseases, (a) and that they have thereby
degraded themselves into mere scavenger-doctors, who, in
their efforts to expel from the diseased body morbific
matters that never existed, in place of curing, destroy
life.
Are, then, the foul, often disgusting excretions which
occur in diseases the actual matter that produces and
keeps them up ?1 Are they not rather always excre-
tory products of the disease itself, that is, of the life
which is only dynamically deranged and disordered?
With such false and materialistic views concerning the
origin and essential nature of diseases, it was certainly
not to be wondered at that in all ages the main endeavour
of the most obscure, as well as of the most distinguished
practitioners, and even of the inventors of the sublimest
medical systems, was always only to separate and expel
an imaginary morbific matter, and the indication most
frequently laid down was to break up and put in motion
this morbific matter, to effect its expulsion by salivation,
expectoration, diaphoresis and diuresis ; to purify the
blood from (acridities and impurities) morbific matters,
which never existed, by means of the intelligence of sundry
obedient decoctions of roots and plants; to draw off
mechanically the imaginary matter of disease by setons,
by issues, by portions of the skin kept open and dis-
charging by means of perpetual blisters or mezereum
bark, but chiefly to expel and purge away the materia
peccans, or the injurious matters as they were termed,
through the intestines, by means of laxative and purgative
medicines, which, in order to give them a more profound
meaning and a more prepossessing appearance, were fondly
denominated dissolvents and mild aperients-all so many
arrangements for the expulsion of inimical morbific
matters, which never could be, and never were instru-
1 Were this the case, the most inveterate coryza should be certainly and
rapidly cured by merely blowing and wiping the nose carefully.
INTRODUCTION.
15
mental in the production and maintenance of the diseases
of the human organism, animated as it is by a spiritual
principle of diseases which never were anything else
than spiritual dynamic derangements of the life altered in
its sensations and functions.(a)
Let it be granted now, what cannot be doubted, that
no diseases-if they do not result from the introduction
of perfectly indigestible or otherwise injurious substances
into the stomach, or into other orifices or cavities of the
body, or from foreign bodies penetrating the skin, &c.-
that no disease, in a word, is caused by any material sub-
stance, but that every one is only and always a peculiar,
virtual, dynamic derangement of the health; how inju-
dicious, in that case, must not a method of treatment
directed towards the expulsion¹ of that imaginary material
1 There is a semblance of necessity in the expulsion by purgatives of worms,
in so-called vermicular diseases. But even this semblance is false. A few
lumbrici may be found in some children; in many there exist ascarides. But
the presence of these is always dependent on a general taint of the constitu-
tion (the psoric), joined to an unhealthy mode of living. Let the latter be
improved, and the former cured homœopathically, which is most easily
effected at this age, and none of the worms remain, and children cured in
this manner are never troubled with them more; whereas after mere purga-
tives, even when combined with cina seeds, they soon reappear in quantities.
"But the tapeworm," methinks I hear some one exclaim,
every effort
should be made to expel that monster, which was created for the torment of
mankind."
"C
Yes, sometimes it is expelled; but at the cost of what after-sufferings, and
with what danger to life! I should not like to have on my conscience the
deaths of so many hundreds of human beings as have fallen sacrifices to the
horribly violent purgatives directed against the tapeworm, or the many years
of indisposition of those who have escaped being purged to death. And how
often does it happen that after all this health-and-life-destroying purgative
treatment, frequently continued for several years, the animal is not expelled,
or if so, that it is again produced!
What if there is not the slightest necessity for all these violent, cruel, and
dangerous efforts to expel and kill the worm ?
The various species of tapeworm are only found along with the psoric
taint, and always disappear when that is cured. But even before the cure is
accomplished, they live-the patient enjoying tolerable health the while-
not exactly in the intestines, but in the residue of the food, the excrement of
the bowels, as in their proper element, quite quietly, and without causing the
least disturbance, and find in the excrement what suffices for their nourish-
ment; they then do not touch the walls of the intestine, and are perfectly
harmless. But if the patient happen to be affected with an acute disease of
Sig
16
INTRODUCTION.
substance appear to every rational man, since no good,
but only monstrous harm, can result from its employment
in the principal diseases of mankind, namely, those of a
chronic character!
In short, the degenerated substances and impurities
that appear in diseases are, undeniably, nothing more
than products of the disease of the abnormally deranged
organism, which are expelled by the latter, often violently
enough—often much too violently-without requiring the
aid of the evacuating art, and fresh products are always
developed as long as it labours under that disease.
These matters the true physician regards as actual
symptoms of the disease, and they aid him to discover
the nature of the disease, and to form an accurate por-
trait of it, so as to enable him to cure it with a similar
medicinal morbific agent.(a)
But the more modern adherents of the old school do
not wish it to be supposed, that in their treatment they
aim at the expulsion of material morbific substances.
They allege that their multifarious evacuant processes are
a mode of treatment by derivation, wherein they follow
the example of nature which, in her efforts to assist the
diseased organism, resolves fever by perspiration and
diuresis, pleurisy by epistaxis, sweat and mucous expec-
any kind, then the contents of the bowels become intolerable to the animal;
it twists about, comes in contact with, and irritates the sensitive walls of the
intestines, causing a peculiar kind of spasmodic colic, which increases mate-
rially the sufferings of the patient. (So also the fœtus in the womb becomes
restless, turns about and kicks, only when the mother is ill; but when she is
well, it swims quietly in its proper fluid without causing her any suffering.)
It is worthy of remark, that the morbid symptoms of patients suffering
from tapeworm are generally of such a kind, that they are rapidly relieved
(homœopathically) by the smallest dose of tincture of male-fern root; so
that the ill-health of the patient, which causes this parasitic animal to be
restless, is thereby for the time removed; the tapeworm then feels at ease,
and lives on quietly in the excrement of the bowels, without particularly
distressing the patient or his intestines, until the antipsoric treatment is so
far advanced that the worm, after the eradication of the psora, finds the
contents of the bowels no longer suitable for its support, and therefore
spontaneously disappears for ever from the now cured patient, without the
least purgative medicine.(«)
INTRODUCTION.
17
toration — other diseases by vomiting, diarrhoea and
bleeding from the anus, articular pains by suppurating
ulcers on the legs, cynanche tonsillaris by salivation, &c.,
or removes them by metastases and abscesses which she
develops in parts at a distance from the seat of the disease.
1
Hence they thought the best thing to do was to imitate
nature, by also going to work in the treatment of most
diseases in a circuitous manner like the diseased vital
force when left to itself, and thus in an indirect manner,'
by means of stronger heterogeneous irritants applied to
organs remote from the seat of disease, and totally dis-
similar to the affected tissues, they produced evacuations,
and generally kept them up, in order to draw, as it were,
the disease thither.
This derivation, as it is called, was and continues to be
one of the principal modes of treatment of the old school of
medicine.
In this imitation of the self-aiding operation of nature,
as some call it, they endeavoured to excite, by force,
new symptoms in the tissues that are least diseased and
best able to bear the medicinal disease, which should draw
away the primary disease under the semblance of crises
and under the form of excretions, in order to admit of a
gradual lysis by the curative powers of nature.³
2
¹ In place of extinguishing the disease rapidly, without exhaustion of the
strength and without going about the bush, with homogeneous, dynamic
medicinal agents acting directly on the diseased points of the organism, as
homœopathy does.
2 Just as if anything immaterial could be drawn away! So that here too
was the notion of a substance and a morbific matter, excessively subtile
though it might be supposed to be! («)
3 It is only the slighter acute diseases that tend, when the natural period
of their course has expired, to terminate quietly in resolution, as it is
called, with or without the employment of not very aggressive allopathic
remedies; the vital force, having regained its powers, then gradually sub-
stitutes the normal condition for the derangement of the health that has now
ceased to exist. But in severe acute and in chronic diseases which constitute
by far the greater portion of all human ailments, crude nature and the old
school are equally powerless; in these, neither the vital force, with its self-
aiding faculty, nor allopathy in imitation of it, can effect a lysis, but at the
most a mere temporary truce, during which the enemy fortifies himself, in
order, sooner or later, to recommence the attack with still greater violence.
2
18
INTRODUCTION.
This they accomplished by means of diaphoretic and
diuretic remedies, blood-lettings, setons and issues, but
chiefly by irritant drugs to cause evacuation of the
alimentary canal, sometimes upwards by means of emetics,
sometimes (and this was the favourite plan) downwards
by means of purgatives, which were termed aperient and
dissolvent¹ remedies.
To assist this derivative method they employed the
allied treatment by counter-irritants; woollen garments
to the bare skin, foot-baths, nauseants, inflicting on the
stomach and bowels the pangs of hunger (the hunger-
treatment), substances to cause pain, inflammation, and
suppuration in near or distant parts, as the application
of horseradish, mustard plasters, cantharides blisters,
mezereum, setons, issues, tartar-emetic ointment, moxa,
actual cautery, acupuncture, &c.; here also following
the example of crude unassisted nature, which endeavours
to free herself from the dynamic disease (in the case of a
chronic disease, unavailingly) by exciting pain in distant
parts of the body, by metastases and abscesses, by erup-
tions and suppurating ulcers.
It was evidently no rational principle, but merely
imitation, with the view of making practice easy, that
seduced the old school into those unhelpful and injurious.
indirect modes of treatment, the derivative as well as the
counter-irritant; that led them to this inefficacious,
debilitating and hurtful practice of apparently amelio-
rating diseases for a short time, or removing them in such
a manner that another and a worse disease was roused
up to occupy the place of the first. Such a destructive
plan cannot certainly be termed curing.
They merely followed the example of crude instinctive
nature in her efforts, which are barely successful even
2
1 An expression which likewise betrays that they imagined and presup-
posed a morbific substance, which had to be dissolved and expelled.
2 In the ordinary school of medicine, the efforts made by nature for the
relief of the organism in diseases where no medicine was given, were regarded
as models of treatment worthy of imitation. But this was a great error.
The pitiable and highly imperfect efforts of the vital force to relieve itself
in acute diseases is a spectacle that should excite our compassion, and com-
INTRODUCTION.
19
in the slighter cases of acute disease; they merely imitated
the unreasoning life-preserving power when left to itself
in diseases, which, entirely dependent as it is upon the
mand the aid of all the powers of our rational mind, to terminate the self-
inflicted torture by a real cure. If nature is unable to cure homœopathically
a disease already existing in the organism, by the production of another
fresh malady similar to it (§§ 43-46), which very rarely lies in her power
(§ 50), and if to the organism alone is left the task of overcoming, by its
own forces and without external aid, a disease newly contracted (in cases of
chronic miasms its power of resistance is quite inefficacious), we then witness
nought but painful, often dangerous, efforts of nature to save the individual
at whatever cost, which often terminate in extinction of the earthly existence,
in death.
Little as we mortals know of the operations that take place in the interior
economy in health—which must be hidden from us as certainly as they are
patent to the eye of the all-seeing Creator and Preserver of his creatures—
just as little can we perceive the operations that go on in the interior in
disturbed conditions of life, in diseases. The internal operations in diseases
are manifested only by the visible changes, the sufferings and the symptoms,
whereby alone our life betrays the inward disturbance; so that in no given
case can we ascertain which of the morbid symptoms are caused by the
primary action of the morbific agent, which by the reaction of the vital force
for its own relief. Both are inextricably mixed up together before our eyes,
and only present to us an outwardly reflected picture of the entire internal
malady, for the fruitless efforts of unassisted vitality to terminate the
sufferings are themselves sufferings of the whole organism. Hence, even in
those evacuations termed crises, which nature generally produces at the
termination of diseases which run a rapid course, there is frequently more
of suffering than of efficacious relief.
What the vital force does in these so-called crises, and how it does it,
remains a mystery to us, like all the internal operations of the organic vital
economy. One thing, however, is certain: that in all these efforts more or
less of the affected parts are sacrificed and destroyed in order to save the
rest. These self-aiding operations of the vital force for the removal of an
acute disease, performed only in obedience to the laws of organic life and not
guided by the reflection of an intellect, are mostly but a species of allopathy;
in order to relieve the primarily affected organ by a crisis, an increased, often
violent, activity is excited in the excretory organs, to draw away the disease
from the former to the latter; there ensue vomitings, purgings, diuresis,
diaphoresis, abscesses, &c., in order, by this irritation of distant parts, to
effect a sort of derivation from the primarily diseased parts, and the
dynamically affected nervous power seems to unload itself in the material
product.
It is only by the destruction and sacrifice of a portion of the organism
itself that unaided nature can save the patient in acute diseases, and, if
death do not ensue, restore, though only slowly and imperfectly, the har-
mony of life-health.
The great weakness of the parts which had been exposed to the disease,
20
INTRODUCTION.
organic laws of the body, is only capable of acting in con-
formity with these laws, and is not guided by reason and
reflection—they copied nature, which cannot, like an intel-
ligent surgeon, bring together the gaping lips of a wound
and by their union effect a cure; which knows not how
to straighten and adjust the broken ends of a bone lying
far apart and exuding much (often an excess of) new
osseous matter; which cannot put a ligature on a wounded
artery, but in its energy causes the patient to bleed to
death; which does not understand how to replace a dis-
located shoulder, but by the swelling it occasions round
about it soon presents an obstacle to reduction; which,
in order to remove a foreign body from the cornea,
destroys the whole eye by suppuration; which, with all
its efforts, can only liberate a strangulated hernia by
gangrene of the bowel and death; and which, by the
metaschematisms it produces in dynamic diseases, often
renders them much worse than they were originally. But
more, this irrational vital force receives into our body, with-
out hesitation, the greatest plagues of our terrestrial exist-
ence, the spark that kindles the countless diseases beneath
which tortured mankind has groaned for hundreds and
thousands of years, the chronic miasms-psora, syphilis,
sycosis-not one of which can it diminish in the slightest
degree, far less expel single-handed from the organism;
on the contrary, it allows them to rankle therein, until,
often after a long life of misery, death at last closes the
eyes of the sufferer.
S
In such an important affair as that of healing, which
demands so much intelligence, reflection and judgment,
how could the old school, which arrogates to itself the
title of rational, choose as its best instructor, as its guide
to be blindly followed, the unintelligent vital force, in-
considerately copy its indirect and revolutionary operations
and even of the whole body, the emaciation, &c., remaining after sponta-
neous cures, are convincing proofs of this.
In short, the whole operation of the self-aiding power of the organism
when attacked by diseases displays to the observer nothing but suffering-
nothing that he could or ought to imitate if he wishes to cure disease in a
truly artistic manner.
INTRODUCTION.
21
in diseases, imagining these to be the non plus ultra, the
best conceivable, when that greatest gift of God, reflective
reason and unfettered judgment, was given us to enable
us infinitely to surpass it in salutary help to suffering
humanity?
When the old school practitioners, thoughtlessly imita-
ting the crude, senseless, automatic vital energy, with
their counter-irritant and derivative methods of treatment
-by far their most usual plans-attack innocent parts and
organs of the body, either inflicting on them excruciating
pains, or, as is most frequently done, compelling them to
perform evacuations, whereby strength and fluids are
wasted, their object is to direct the morbid vital action
in the primarily affected parts away to those artificially
attacked, and thus to effect the cure of the natural disease
indirectly, by the production of a disease, much greater in
intensity and of quite a different kind, in the healthy parts
of the body, consequently by a circuitous way, at the cost
of much loss of strength, and usually of great sufferings
to the patient.¹
The disease, if it be acute, and consequently naturally
of but short duration, may certainly disappear, even
during these heterogeneous attacks on distant and dis-
similar parts-but it is not cured. There is nothing that
can merit the honourable name of cure in this revolutionary
treatment, which has no direct, immediate, pathological
1 Daily experience shows the sad effects of this manœuvre in chronic dis-
eases. Anything but a cure is effected. Who would ever call that a victory
if, in place of attacking the enemy in front in a hand-to-hand fight, and by
his destruction terminating at once his hostile assaults, we should, in a
cowardly manner and behind his back, lay an embargo on everything, cut off
his supplies, burn down everything for a great way round him? By so
doing we would at length deprive him of all courage to resist, but our object
is not gained, the enemy is far from being destroyed, he is still there, and
when he can again procure provisions and supplies, he once more rears his
head, more exasperated than before-the enemy, I repeat, is far from being
destroyed, but the poor innocent country is so completely ruined that it will
be long before it can recover itself. In like manner acts allopathy in
chronic diseases, when, by its indirect attacks on innocent parts at a distance
from the seat of the disease, instead of effecting a cure, it destroys the
organism. Such is the result of its hurtful operations!
22
INTRODUCTION.
relation to the tissues primarily affected. Often, indeed,
without these serious attacks on the rest of the organism,
would the acute disease have ceased of itself, sooner most
likely, with fewer subsequent sufferings and less sacri-
fice of strength. But neither the mode of operation of
the crude natural forces, nor the allopathic copy of
that, can for a moment be compared to the dynamic
(homoeopathic) treatment, which sustains the strength,
while it extinguishes the disease in a direct and rapid
.
manner.
In far the greatest number of cases of disease, how-
ever I mean those of a chronic nature-these perturbing,
debilitating, indirect modes of treatment of the old
school are scarcely ever of the slightest use. They sus-
pend, for a few days only, some troublesome symptom or
other, which, however, returns when the system has
become accustomed to the distant irritation, and the
disease recurs worse than before, because by the antago-
nistic pains¹ and the injudicious evacuations the vital
powers have been depressed.
Whilst most physicians of the old school, imitating in
a general manner the efforts of crude, unaided nature for
its own relief, carried out in their practice these deriva-
tions of merely hypothetical utility, just as they judged
expedient (guided by some imaginary indication); others,
aiming at a higher object, undertook designedly to pro-
mote the efforts of the vital force to aid itself by evacuations
and antagonistic metastases, as seen in diseases, and by
way of lending it a helping hand, to increase still more
these derivations and evacuations; and they believed
that by this hurtful procedure they were acting duce
natura, and might justly claim the title of ministri naturæ.
1 What good results have ever ensued from those fœtid artificial ulcers, so
much in vogue, called issues? If even during the first week or two, whilst
they still cause pain, they appear somewhat to check by antagonism a
chronic disease, yet by and by, when the body has become accustomed to the
pain, they have no other effect than that of weakening the patient and
giving still greater scope to the chronic affection. Or does anyone imagine,
in this nineteenth century, that they serve as an outlet for the escape of the
materia peccans? It almost appears as if this were the case!
INTRODUCTION.
23
As the evacuations effected by the natural powers of the
patient in chronic diseases are not infrequently the pre-
cursors of alleviations-though only of a temporary cha-
racter-of troublesome symptoms, violent pains, paralyses,
spasms, &c., so the old school imagined these derivations
to be the true way of curing diseases, and endeavoured
to promote, maintain and even increase such evacuations.
But they did not perceive that all these evacuations and
excretions (pseudo-crises) produced by nature when left
to herself were, in chronic diseases, only palliative, tran-
sient alleviations, which, far from contributing to a real
cure, on the contrary, rather aggravated the original,
internal dyscrasia, by the waste of strength and juices
they occasioned. No one ever saw a chronic patient re-
cover his health permanently by such efforts of crude nature,
nor any chronic disease cured by such evacuations effected
by the organism.¹ On the contrary, in such cases the
original dyscrasia is always perceptibly aggravated, after
alleviations, whose duration always becomes shorter and
shorter; the bad attacks recur more frequently and more
severely in spite of the continuation of the evacuations.
In like manner, on the occurrence of symptoms excited
by an internal chronic affection that threaten to destroy
life, when nature, left to its own resources, cannot help
herself in any other way than by the production of ex-
ternal local symptoms, in order to avert the danger from
parts indispensable to life and direct it to tissues of less
vital importance (metastasis), these operations of the ener-
getic but unintelligent, unreasoning and improvident vital
force conduce to anything but genuine relief or recovery;
they only silence in a palliative manner, for a short time,
the dangerous internal affection, at the cost of a large
portion of the humours and of the strength, without
diminishing the original disease by a hair's breadth; they
can, at the most, only retard the fatal termination which
is inevitable without true homoeopathic treatment.
The allopathy of the old school not only greatly over-
I
Equally inefficacious are those produced artificially.
24
INTRODUCTION.
rated these efforts of the crude automatic power of
nature, but completely misjudged them, falsely considered
them to be truly curative, and endeavoured to increase
and promote them, vainly imagining that thereby they
might perhaps succeed in annihilating and radically cur-
ing the whole disease. When, in chronic diseases, the
vital force seemed to silence this or that troublesome
symptom of the internal affection by the production, for
example, of some humid cutaneous eruption, then the
servant of the crude power of nature (minister naturæ)
applied to the discharging surface a cantharides plaster
or an exutory (mezereum), in order, duce natura, to draw
still more moisture from the skin, and thus to promote
and to assist nature's object—the cure (by the removal of
the morbific matter from the body ?); but when the effect
of the remedy was too violent, the eczema already of long
standing, and the system too irritable, he increased the
external affection to a great degree without the slightest
advantage to the original. disease, and aggravated the
pains, which deprived the patient of sleep and depressed
his strength (and sometimes even developed a malignant
febrile erysipelas); or if the effect upon the local affec-
tion (still recent, perhaps) was of a milder character, he
thereby repelled from its seat, by a species of ill-applied
external homœopathy, the local symptom which had been
established by nature on the skin for the relief of the
internal disease, thus renewing the more dangerous inter-
nal malady, and by this repulsion of the local symptom
compelling the vital force to effect a transference of a
worse form of morbid action to other and more important
parts; the patient became affected with dangerous oph-
thalmia, or deafness, or spasms of the stomach, or epileptic
convulsions, or attacks of asthma or apoplexy, or mental
derangement, &c., in place of the repelled local disease.¹
When the diseased natural force propelled blood into
the veins of the rectum or anus (blind hæmorrhoids), the
¹ Natural effects of the repulsion of these local symptoms-effects that are
often regarded by the allopathic physician as fresh diseases of quite a
different kind.
INTRODUCTION.
25
minister naturæ, under the same delusive idea of assisting
the vital force in its curative efforts, applied leeches, often
in large numbers, in order to give an outlet to the blood
there—with but brief, often scarcely noteworthy, relief,
but thereby weakening the body and occasioning still
greater congestions in those parts, without the slightest
diminution of the original disease.
In almost all cases in which the diseased vital force
endeavoured to subdue the violence of a dangerous inter-
nal malady by evacuating blood by means of vomiting,
coughing, &c., the old school physician, duce natura, made
haste to assist these supposed salutary efforts of nature,
and performed a copious venesection, which was invari-
ably productive of injurious consequences and palpable
weakening of the body.
.
In cases of frequently occurring chronic nausea, he
produced, with the view of furthering the intentions of
nature, copious evacuations of the stomach, by means of
powerful emetics-never with a good result, often with
bad, not infrequently dangerous and even fatal con-
sequences.
The vital force, in order to relieve the internal malady,
sometimes produces indolent enlargements of the external
glands, and he thinks to forward the intentions of nature,
in his assumed character of her servant, when, by the use
of all sorts of heating embrocations and plasters, he causes
them to inflame, so that, when the abscess is ripe, he
may incise it and let out the bad morbific matter (?).
Experience has shown, hundreds of times, that lasting
evil almost invariably results from such a plan.
And having often noticed slight amelioration of the
severe symptoms of chronic diseases to result from spon-
taneous night sweats or frequent liquid stools, he imagines
himself bound to obey these hints of nature (duce natura),
and to promote them, by instituting and maintaining a
complete course of sweating treatment or by the employ-
ment of so-called gentle laxatives for years, in order to
promote and increase these efforts of nature (of the vital
force of the unintelligent organism), which he thinks tend
Jul
26
INTRODUCTION.
!
to the cure of the whole chronic affection, and thus to
free the patient more speedily and certainly from his
disease (the matter of his disease?).
But he thereby always produces quite the contrary
result: aggravation of the original disease.
In conformity with this preconceived but unfounded
idea, the old school physician goes on thus promoting¹
the efforts of the diseased vital force and increasing those
derivations and evacuations in the patient which never
lead to the desired end, but are always disastrous, without
being aware that all the local affections, evacuations, and
seemingly derivative efforts, set up and continued by the
unintelligent vital force when left to its own resources, for
the relief of the original chronic disease, are actually the
disease itself, the phenomena of the whole disease, for the
totality of which, properly speaking, the only efficacious
remedy, and the one, moreover, that will act in the most
direct manner, is a homeopathic medicine, chosen on
account of its similarity of action.
As everything that crude nature does to relieve itself
in diseases, in those of an acute, but especially those of a
1 In direct opposition to this treatment, the old school not infrequently
indulged themselves in the very reverse of this: thus, when the efforts of the
vital force for the relief of the internal disease by evacuations and the
production of local symptoms on the exterior of the body became trouble-
some, they capriciously suppressed them by their repercutients and repellents ;
they subdued chronic pains, sleeplessness and diarrhoea of long standing by
doses of opium pushed to a dangerous extent; vomitings by effervescent
saline draughts; fœtid perspiration of the feet by cold footbaths and astrin-
gent applications; eruptions on the skin by preparations of lead and zinc;
they checked uterine hæmorrhage by injections of vinegar; colliquative
perspiration by alum; nocturnal seminal emissions by the free use of cam-
phor; frequent attacks of flushes of heat in the body and face by nitre,
vegetable acids and sulphuric acid; bleeding of the nose by plugging the
nostrils with dossils of lint soaked in alcohol or astringent fluids; they dried
up discharging ulcers on the legs, established by the vital power for the
relief of great internal suffering, with the oxydes of lead and zinc, &c., with
what sad results experience has shown in thousands of cases.
With tongue and with pen the old school physician brags that he is a
rational practitioner, and that he investigates the cause of the disease so as
always to make radical cures; but behold, his treatment is directed, in these
cases, against a single symptom only, and always with injurious consequences
to his patient.(«)
INTRODUCTION.
27
chronic kind, is extremely imperfect and even actual
disease, it may easily be conceived that the promotion by
artificial means of this imperfection and disease must do
still more harm; at least, it cannot improve the efforts of
nature for its own relief, even in acute diseases, because
medical art is not in a condition to follow the hidden paths
by which the vital force effects its crises, but attempts to
produce them from without, by violent means, which are
still less beneficial than what the instinctive vital force
left to its own resources does, but on the other hand are
more perturbing and debilitating. For even the incom-
plete amelioration resulting from the natural derivations
and crises cannot be obtained in a similar manner by allo-
pathy; with all its endeavours it cannot procure anything
like even that pitiful relief the vital force left to itself is
able to afford.
It has been attempted to produce, by means of scarify-
ing instruments, a bleeding at the nose, in imitation of
that sometimes occurring naturally, in order to mitigate,
for example, the attacks of a chronic headache. By this
means a large quantity of blood could be made to flow
from the nostrils and weaken the patient, but the relief
afforded was either nil, or much less than the instinctive
vital force would procure at another time, when, of its
own accord, it would cause but a few drops to flow.
A so-called critical perspiration or diarrhoea, produced
by the ever active vital force after a sudden indisposition,
excited by anger, fright, a sprain or a chill, will be much
more successful, at least for the time, in relieving the
acute disease, than all the sudorific or purgative drugs in
the pharmacopoeia, which only make the patient worse, as
daily experience shows.
But the vital force, which of itself can only act
according to the physical constitution of our organism,
and is not guided by reason, knowledge and reflection,
was not given to man to be regarded as the best possible
curative agent to restore those lamentable deviations
from health to the normal condition, and still less that
physicians should slavishly imitate its imperfect morbid
28
INTRODUCTION.
efforts (to free itself from disease), and that with opera-
tions incontestably more inappropriate and severe than its
own, and thereby conveniently spare themselves the
expenditure of reasoning, reflection and judgment re-
quisite for the discovery and for the practice of the
noblest of human arts the true healing art—while
they allege their bad copy of the spontaneous efforts of
doubtful utility made by the crude natural force for its
relief, to be the healing art, the rational healing art!
What sensible man would imitate the efforts of the
organism for its own preservation ? These efforts are
in reality the disease itself, and the morbidly affected
vital force is the producer of the visible disease! It
must, therefore, necessarily follow that all artificial
imitation, and likewise the suppression of these efforts,
must either increase the disease or render it dangerous
by their suppression, and both of these allopathy does;
these are its pernicious operations which it alleges to be
the healing art, the rational healing art! («)
No! that exquisite power innate in the human being,
designed to direct in the most perfect manner the opera-
tions of life while it is in health, equally present in all
parts of the organism, in the fibres of sensibility as well
as in those of irritability, the unwearying spring of all
the normal natural functions of the body, was not created
for the purpose of affording itself aid in diseases, not for
the purpose of exercising a healing art worthy of imita-
tion. No! the true healing art is that reflective work, the
attribute of the higher powers of human intellect, of un-
fettered judgment and of reason selecting and determining
on principle in order to effect an alteration in the instinctive,
irrational and unintelligent, but energetic automatic vital
force, when it has been diverted by disease into abnormal
action, and by means of a similar affection developed by a
homœopathically chosen remedy, to excite in it a medi-
cinal disease somewhat greater in degree, so that the
natural morbid affection can no longer act upon the vital
force, which thus, freed from the natural disease, has now
only the similar, somewhat stronger, medicinal morbid
INTRODUCTION.
29
affection to contend with, against which it now directs its
whole energy and which it soon overpowers, whereby the
vital force is liberated and enabled to return to the normal
standard of health and to its proper function, “the main-
tenance of the life and health of the organism," without
having suffered, during this change, any painful or
debilitating attacks. Homœopathy teaches us how to
effect this.
Under the methods of treatment of the old school I
have just detailed, no small number of patients certainly
got rid of their diseases, but not of those of a chronic
(non-venereal) character; only such as were acute and
unattended with danger; and even these they were only
freed from by such circuitous and tedious ways, and
often so incompletely, that the results of the treatment
could never be termed cures effected by a gentle art.
Acute diseases of a not very dangerous kind were, by
venesections or suppression of one of the chief symptoms
through the instrumentality of an enantiopathic palliative
remedy (contraria contrariis), kept under, or by means of
counter-irritant and derivative (antagonistic and revulsive)
remedies, applied to other than the diseased spots, sus-
pended, until the natural time for the duration of the
short malady had expired. These methods were, conse-
quently, indirect, and attended with loss of strength and
humours, so much so that in patients so treated the
greatest and most important measures for the complete
removal of the disease and for the restoration of the lost
strength and humours remained to be performed by
Nature herself-by the life-preserving power which, be-
sides the removal of the natural acute disease, had also
to combat the effects of improper treatment, and thus it
was able, in cases unattended by danger, gradually to
restore the normal relation of the functions by means of
its own energy, but often in a tedious, imperfect and
painful manner.
It remains a very doubtful question whether the
natural process of recovery in acute diseases is really at
30
INTRODUCTION.
all shortened or facilitated by this interference of the old
school, as the latter cannot act otherwise than the vital
force, namely, indirectly; but its derivative and counter-
irritant treatment is much more injurious and much
more debilitating.
The old school has yet another method of treatment,
which is termed the stimulating and strengthening
system¹ (by excitantia, nervina, tonica, confortantia,
roborantia). It is astonishing how it can boast of this
method.
Has it ever succeeded in removing the physical weak-
ness so often engendered and kept up or increased by a
chronic disease with its prescriptions of etheric Rhine-
wine or fiery Tokay? The strength gradually sank
under this treatment, and all the lower, the greater the
quantity of wine the patient was persuaded to drink,
because the source of the weakness, the chronic disease,
was not cured by it, because artificial stimulation is
followed by relaxation in the reaction of the vital force.
Or did its cinchona bark, or its amara, so misunder-
stood, so multifarious in their modes of action, and pro-
ductive of quite different kinds of injury, give strength
in these frequently occurring cases? Did not these
vegetable substances, said to be tonic and strengthening
under all circumstances, as also the preparations of iron,
often add to the old disease new sufferings, by virtue of
their peculiar pathogenetic effects, without relieving the
weakness proceeding from an unknown disease of long
standing?
Has any one ever succeeded in diminishing in the very
least the duration of the incipient paralysis of an arm or
a leg, so often arising from a chronic dyscrasia, by means
of the so-called unguenta nervina or any other spirituous
or balsamic embrocations, without curing the dyscrasia
itself. Or have electric or galvanic shocks ever been
attended with any other result in such cases, than a
1 It is, properly speaking, enantiopathic, and I shall again refer to it in
the text of the Organon (§ 59).
INTRODUCTION.
31
gradually increasing, and finally absolute, paralysis, and
extinction of all muscular and nervous irritability in the
affected limbs ?1
Did not the renowned excitantia and aphrodisiaca, am-
bergris, lacerta scincus, cantharides tincture, truffles, car-
damoms, cinnamon and vanilla invariably bring about
complete impotence when used for the purpose of restor-
ing the gradually declining sexual power (which always
depended on an unobserved chronic miasm)?
How can credit be taken for the production of a stimu-
lation and invigoration of but a few hours' duration,
when the result that must follow and which is permanent
-according to the laws of all palliative action—is a
directly opposite state, the rendering of the disease in-
curable?
The little good that the excitantia and roborantia did
for recovery from acute diseases (treated according to the
old method) was a thousand times outweighed by their
ill effects in chronic maladies.
When physicians of the old school do not know what
to do in a chronic disease, they treat it blindly with their
so-called alterative remedies (alterantia); among which
the horrible mercurialia (calomel, corrosive sublimate and
mercurial ointment) occupy the foremost place-which
they allow to act in such large quantities and for so long
a time on the diseased body (in non-venereal diseases!)
that at last the health is by their destructive effects com-
pletely undermined. They thus certainly produce great
alterations, but invariably such as are not beneficial, and
they always utterly ruin the health by their improper
administration of this excessively injurious metal.
When they prescribe, in large doses, cinchona bark
(which, as a homoeopathic febrifuge, is only specific in
1 Those affected with hardness of hearing were relieved by moderate
shocks from the voltaic pile of the apothecary of Jever only for a few hours
-these moderate shocks soon lost their power. In order to produce the
same result he had to make them stronger; until these stronger shocks had
no effect; the very strongest would then at first excite the patients' hearing
for a short time, but at length left them quite deaf.
32
INTRODUCTION.
true marsh ague, uncomplicated with psora), for all epi-
demic intermittent fevers, which are often distributed
over large tracts of country, the old school practitioners
palpably manifest their stupidity, for these diseases assume
a different character almost every year and hence
demand for their cure, almost always, a different homœo-
pathic remedy, by means of one or a few very small doses
of which they may always be radically cured in a few
days. Now, because these epidemic fevers have periodical
attacks (typus) and the adherents of the old school see
nothing in all intermittent fevers but their typus [perio-
dicity], and neither know nor care to know any other
febrifuge but cinchona, these routine practitioners imagine,
if they can but suppress the typus of the epidemic inter-
mittent fever with enormous doses of cinchona and its
costly alkaloid, quinine (an event which the unintelligent,
but, in this instance, more sensible vital force endeavours
to prevent often for months), that they have cured this
epidemic ague. But the deluded patient, after such a
suppression of the periodicity (typus) of his fever, invari-
ably becomes worse than he was during the fever itself:
with sallow complexion, dyspnoea, constriction in the
hypochondria, disordered bowels, unhealthy appetite,
broken sleep, feeble and desponding, often with great
swelling of the legs, of the abdomen and even of the
face and hands, he creeps out of the hospital, dismissed
as cured, and long years of homoeopathic treatment are
not infrequently required, merely to rescue from death,
let alone to cure and restore to health, such a profoundly
injured (cured ?), artificially cachectic patient.
The old school is happy when it can convert the dull
stupor that occurs in typhus fevers, by means of valerian,
which in this case acts antipathically, into a kind of liveli-
ness of a few hours' duration; but as this does not con-
tinue, and to force a repetition of the animation ever
increasing doses of valerian are requisite, it is not long
before the largest doses cease to have the desired effect.
But as this palliative is only stimulant in its primary
action, in its after effects the vital force is paralysed, and
www
INTRODUCTION.
33
such a patient is certain of a speedy death from this
rational treatment of the old school; none can escape.
And yet the adherents of this routine art could not per-
ceive that by these proceedings they most certainly killed
their patients; they ascribed the death to the malignancy
of the disease.
A palliative of a still more horrible character for chronic
patients is the digitalis purpurea, with which the old school
practitioners imagine they do such excellent service, when,
by means of it, they compel the quick, irritated pulse in
chronic diseases (purely symptomatic!) to become slower.
True it is that this dreadful remedy, which is in such
cases employed enantiopathically, strikingly diminishes
the frequency of the quick, irritated pulse, and greatly
reduces the number of the arterial pulsations, for a few
hours, after the first dose; but the pulse soon becomes
more rapid than before. In order again to diminish in
some degree its frequency the dose is increased, and it
has the effect, but for a still shorter period, until even
these and still larger palliative doses cease to reduce the
pulse, which at length, in the secondary action of the
foxglove which can no longer be restrained, becomes much
more rapid than it was before the use of this drug,—it
then becomes uncountable; sleep, appetite and strength
are lost-death is imminent; not one of the patients so
treated escapes alive, unless to be a prey to incurable
insanity !¹ (a)
Such was the treatment pursued by the allopathist.
The patients, therefore, were obliged to yield to the sad
necessity, because they could obtain no better aid from
other allopathists, who had gained their knowledge from
the same deceitful books.
As the fundamental cause of chronic (non-venereal)
1 And yet Hufeland, the chief of this old school (v. Homöopathie, p. 22),
extols with much satisfaction the employment of digitalis in such cases, in
these words: "None will deny" (experience invariably does so!) "that too
great rapidity of the circulation can be removed (?) by digitalis." Per-
manently removed? and by a heroic enantiopathic remedy? Poor Hufe-
land!
3
34
INTRODUCTION.
diseases, together with the remedies for them, remained
unknown to these practitioners, who vainly boasted of
their causal medication and of their diagnosis being di-
rected to the investigation of the genesis of diseases; how
could they hope to cure the immense numbers of chronic
diseases by their indirect treatments, which were but
hurtful imitations of the unintelligent vital force for its own
relief, that never were intended to be models for practice?
The presumed character of the affection they regarded
as the cause of the disease, and hence they directed their
pretended causal treatment against spasm, inflammation
(plethora), fever, general and partial debility, mucus,
putridity, obstructions, &c., which they thought to remove
by means of their antispasmodic, antiphlogistic, tonic,
stimulant, antiseptic, dissolvent, resolvent, derivative, eva-
cuant, antagonistic remedies (of which they only possessed
a superficial knowledge).
But from such general indications really serviceable
medicines could not be discovered, most assuredly not in
the materia medica of the old school, which, as I have
elsewhere shown, is founded mainly on conjecture and
false deductions ab usu in morbis, mixed up with falsehood
and fraud.
2
With equal rashness they attacked those still more
hypothetical so-called indications-deficiency or excess of
oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, or hydrogen in the fluids, exalta-
tion or diminution of the irritability, sensibility and re-
production, derangements of the arterial, venous and
capillary systems, asthenia, &c., without knowing a single
remedy for effecting objects so visionary. All this was
pure ostentation.
It was a mode of treatment that did
no good to the patients.
.
1 Which Hufeland in his pamphlet, Die Homöopathie, p. 20, makes a futile
attempt to appropriate for his old pseudo-art. For since, as is well known,
previous to the appearance of my book (Chronic Diseases), the 2500-years-
old allopathy knew nothing about the source of most chronic diseases
(psora), must it not have attributed a false source (genesis) to such mala-
dies ? (a)
2 See essay in the first volume of the Materia Medica Pura (English
edit.), "Sources of the Common Materia Medica."
INTRODUCTION.
35
.
But all semblance of appropriate treatment of diseases
was completely lost by a practice, introduced in the
earliest times, and even made into a rule: I mean the
mixture in a prescription of various medicinal substances,
whose real action was, almost without an exception,
unknown, and which, without any one exception, invari-
ably differed so much among each other. One medicine
(the sphere of whose medicinal effects was unknown) was
placed foremost, as the principal remedy (basis), and was
designed to subdue what the physician deemed the chief
character of the disease; to this was added some other
drug (equally unknown as regards the sphere of its
medicinal action) for the removal of some accessory
symptom, or to strengthen the action of the first (adjuvans);
and besides these, yet another (likewise unknown as to
the sphere of its medicinal powers), a pretended correc-
tive remedy (corrigens); these were all mixed together
(boiled, infused)-and along with them, some medicinal
syrup, or distilled medicinal water, also with different
properties, would be included in the formula, and it was
supposed that each of the ingredients of this mixture
would perform, in the diseased body, the part allotted to
it by the prescriber's imagination, without suffering itself
to be disturbed or led astray by the other things mixed
up along with it; which, however, could not in reason be
expected. One ingredient suspended wholly or partially
the action of another, or communicated to it and to the
others a mode of action and operation not anticipated
nor conjecturable, so that it was impossible the expected
effect could be obtained; there frequently occurred a new
morbid derangement, which, from the incomprehensible
changes imparted to substances by their admixture, was
not and could not have been foreseen, which escaped
observation amid the tumultuous symptoms of the disease,
and which became permanent from a lengthened employ-
ment of the prescription-accordingly an artificial disease
was added to and complicated the original disease, causing
an aggravation of the latter-or if the prescription were
not often repeated, but superseded by one or more new
1
36
INTRODUCTION.
prescriptions, composed of other ingredients, given in
rapid succession, then the very least that could happen
was a farther depression of the strength, for the substances
administered in that way neither had, nor could have had,
any direct pathological relation to the original malady,
but only attacked, in a useless and injurious manner,
parts that were least implicated in the disease.
The mixture of several medicines, even if the effects of
each single medicine on the human body were accurately
known (the prescription writer, however, often knows
not the thousandth part of their effects-), the association,
in one prescription, of several such ingredients, I repeat,
many of which are themselves of a very compound nature,
and the peculiar action of any one of which is as good as
unknown, although in reality it always differs greatly
from that of the others, and the administration of this
incomprehensible mixture to the patient in large and fre-
quently repeated doses, in order therewith to obtain
some purposed, certain, curative effect, is a piece of folly
repugnant to every reflecting and unprejudiced person.'
¹ The absurdity of medicinal mixtures was perceived even by adherents
of the old school of medicine, although they still continued to follow this
slovenly plan in their own practice, contrary to their convictions. Thus
Marcus Herz (in Hufeland's Journal, ii, p. 33) reveals the pricks of his
conscience in the following words: "When we wish to remove the inflamma-
tory state, we do not employ either nitre or sal-ammoniac or vegetable acids
alone, but we usually mix several, and often but too many, so-called anti-
phlogistics together, or give them in the same case in close succession. If
we have to combat putridity, we are not content to look for the attainment
of our object from the administration of large doses of one of the known
antiseptic medicines, such as cinchona bark, mineral acids, arnica, ser-
pentaria, &c., alone; we prefer associating several of them together, and
count upon their community of action; or from our uncertainty as to whose
action is the most suitable for the case in question, we throw together a
number of different substances, and almost leave it to chance to effect the
end we have in view, by means of one of them. Thus we seldom excite
perspiration, purify the blood (?), overcome obstructions (?), promote expec-
toration, or even evacuate the primæ viæ, by a single remedy; our prescrip-
tions for these objects are always composite, almost never simple and pure,
consequently neither are our observations in reference to the actions of each
individual substance contained in them. To be sure, we learnedly institute
certain grades of rank among the remedies in our formulas; on the one to
which we particularly commission the action, we confer the title of base
INTRODUCTION.
37
The result naturally belies every expectation that had
been formed. There certainly ensue changes and results,
but none of an appropriate character, none beneficial—all
injurious, destructive!
I should like to see any one who would call the pur-
blind inroads of such prescriptions on the diseased human
body a cure!
It is only by guiding what still remains of the vital
principle in the patient to the proper performance of its
functions, by means of a suitable medicine, that a cure
can be expected, but not by enervating the body to death,
secundum artem; and yet the old school knows not what
else to do with patients suffering from chronic diseases,
than to attack the sufferers with drugs that do nothing but
torture them, waste their strength and fluids, and shorten
their lives! Can it be said to save whilst it destroys?
Does it deserve any other name that that of a mischievous
[non-healing] art? It acts, lege artis, in the most in-
appropriate manner, and it does (it would almost seem
purposely) alλoĩa, that is to say, the very opposite of
what it should do. Can it be commended? Can it be
any longer tolerated?
In recent times the old school practitioners have quite
surpassed themselves in their cruelty towards their sick
fellow-creatures, and in the unsuitableness of their opera-
(basis), the others we call helpers, supporters (adjuvantia), correctives (corri-
gentia), &c. But this classification is evidently almost entirely arbitrary.
The helpers and supporters have just as much part in the whole action as the
chief ingredient, although, from want of a standard of measurement, we are
unable to determine the degree of their participation in the result. In like
manner the influence of the correctives on the powers of the other ingre-
dients cannot be quite indifferent; they must increase or diminish them, or
give them quite another direction; and hence we must always regard the
salutary (?) change which we effect, by means of such a prescription, as the
result of all its ingredients collectively, and we can never obtain from its
action a pure experience of the individual efficacy of any single ingredient of
which it is composed. In fact, our knowledge of what is essential to be
known respecting all our remedies, as also respecting the perhaps hundred-
fold relationships among each other into which they enter when combined, is
far too little to be relied upon to enable us to tell with certainty the degree
and extent of the action of a substance, seemingly ever so unimportant, when
introduced into the human body in combination with other substances.”
38
INTRODUCTION.
!..
tions, as every unprejudiced observer must admit, and as
even physicians of their own school have been forced, by
the pricks of their conscience (like Krüger Hansen), to
confess before the world.
It was high time for the wise and benevolent Creator
and Preserver of mankind to put a stop to these abomina-
tions, to command a cessation of these tortures, and to
reveal a healing art the very opposite of all this, which
should not waste the vital juices and powers by emetics,
perennial scourings out of the bowels, warm baths, dia-
phoretics or salivation; nor shed the life's blood, nor
torment and weaken with painful appliances; nor, in
place of curing patients, suffering from diseases, render
them incurable by the addition of new, chronic medicinal
maladies by means of the prolonged use of wrong,
powerful medicines of unknown properties; nor yoke the
horse behind the cart, by giving strong palliatives, ac-
cording to the old favourite axiom, contraria contrariis
curentur; nor, in short, in place of lending the patient
aid, to guide him in the way to death, as is done by the
merciless routine practitioner ;-but which, on the con-
trary, should spare the patient's strength as much as
possible, and should, rapidly and mildly, effect an unalloyed
and permanent cure, and restore to health by means of
smallest doses of few simple medicines carefully selected
according to their proved effects, by the only therapeutic
law conformable to nature: similia similibus curentur.
It was high time that He should permit the discovery
of homoeopathy.(a)
.
**
By observation, reflection and experience, I discovered
that, contrary to the old allopathic method, the true,
the proper, the best mode of treatment is contained in
the maxim (@) To cure mildly, rapidly, certainly, and per-
manently, choose, in every case of disease, a medicine which
can itself produce an affection similar (őµnov máloç) to
that sought to be cured!
Hitherto no one has ever taught this homoeopathic mode.
of cure, no one has carried it out in practice. But if the
truth is only to be found in this method, as I can prove
INTRODUCTION.
39
it to be, we might expect that, even though it remained
unperceived for thousands of years, distinct traces of it
would yet be discovered in every age."
And such is the fact. In all ages, the patients who
have been really, rapidly, permanently and obviously cured
by medicines, and who did not merely recover by some
fortuitous circumstance, or by the acute disease having
run its allotted course, or by the powers of the system.
having, in the course of time, gradually attained the pre-
ponderance, under allopathic and antagonistic treatment
—for being cured in a direct manner differs vastly from
recovering in an indirect manner-such patients have
been cured solely (although without the knowledge of
the physician) by means of a (homoeopathic) medicine
which possessed the power of producing a similar morbid
state.
Even in real cures by means of mixtures of medi-
cines-which were excessively rare-it will be found
that the remedy whose action predominated was always
of a homoeopathic character.
But this is observed much more strikingly in cases.
where physicians sometimes effected a rapid cure with
one simple medicinal substance, contrary to the usual
custom, that admitted of none but mixtures of medicines
in the form of a prescription. There we see, to our
astonishment, that this always occurred by means of a
medicine that is itself capable of producing an affec-
tion similar to the case of disease, although the phy-
sicians themselves knew not what they were doing,
and acted in forgetfulness of the contrary doctrines of
their own school. They prescribed a medicine the very
reverse of that which they should have employed accord-
ing to the traditional therapeutics, and it was only in
consequence of so doing that the patients were rapidly
cured. (a)
1 For truth is co-eternal with the all-wise, benevolent Deity. It may long
escape the observation of man, until the time foreordained by Providence
arrives, when its rays shall irresistibly break through the clouds of pre-
judice and usher in the dawn of a day which shall shine with a bright and
inextinguishable light for the weal of the human race.
40
INTRODUCTION.
J
If we deduct the cases in which the specific remedy
for a disease of never varying character has been made
known to physicians of the ordinary school (not by their
own investigation, but) by the empirical practice of the
common people, wherewith they are enabled to effect a
direct cure, as for instance, of the venereal chancrous
disease with mercury; of the morbid state resulting from
contusions with arnica; of marsh ague with cinchona
bark; of recent cases of itch with flowers of sulphur, &c.
--if we deduct these, we find, that without almost any
exception, all the other treatment of the old school
physician, in chronic diseases, consists in debilitating,
teasing and tormenting the already afflicted patient, to
the aggravation of his disease and to his destruction, with
a great display of dignified gravity on the part of the
doctor and at a ruinous expense to the patient.(a)
Blind experience sometimes led them to a homoeopathic
mode of treatment,' and yet they did not perceive the law
1 Thus they imagined they could drive out through the skin the sudatory
matter which they believed to stagnate there after a chill, if they gave the
patient to drink, during the cold stage of the catarrhal fever, an infusion of
elder flowers, which is capable of removing such a fever and curing the
patient by its peculiar similarity of action (homœopathically), and this it
does most promptly and effectually, without causing perspiration, if but a
small quantity of this infusion, and nothing else, be taken. To hard, acute
swellings, in which the excessive violence of the inflammation prevents their
suppuration and causes intolerable pains, they apply very warm poultices,
frequently renewed, and behold! the inflammation and the pains diminish
rapidly, while the abscess is rapidly formed, as is known by the yellowish
shining elevation and the perceptible softening. In this case they imagine
that the hardness has been softened by the moisture of the poultice, whereas
it is chiefly by the greater heat of the poultice that the excess of inflamma-
tion has been homoeopathically subdued, and the rapid suppuration been
enabled to take place.-Why do they employ with benefit in many ophthal-
miæ St. Yve's salve, the chief ingredient of which is red oxyde of mercury,
which can produce inflammation of the eyes, if anything can? Is it hard to
see that they here act homœopathically?—Or why should a little parsley
juice produce such evident relief in those cases (by no means rare), where
there are anxious, often ineffectual, efforts to urinate in little children, and
in ordinary gonorrhoea, which is well known by the very painful, frequent
and almost ineffectual attempts to make water, if the fresh juice of this
plant had not the power of causing, in healthy persons, a painful, almost
fruitless, urging to urinate, consequently cures homœopathically? With the
pimpernel root, which causes great secretion of mucus in the bronchia and
C
INTRODUCTION.
41
of nature in obedience to which cures so effected did and
must ensue.
Hence it is highly important, for the weal of mankind,
to ascertain what really took place in these extremely rare
but singularly salutary treatments. The answer we obtain
to this question is of the utmost significance. They were
never performed in any other manner than by means of
medicines of homoeopathic power, that is to say, capable
of producing a disease similar to the morbid state sought
to be cured; the cures were effected rapidly and perma-
nently by medicines, the medical prescribers of which
made use of them as it were by accident, and even in
opposition to the doctrines of all previous systems and
therapeutics (often without rightly knowing what they
were doing and why they did it), and thus, against their
will, they practically confirmed the necessity of the only
therapeutic law consonant to nature, that of homoeopathy
-a therapeutic law, which, despite the many facts and
innumerable hints that pointed to it, no physicians of
past epochs have exerted themselves to discover, blinded as
they all have been by medical prejudices.
For even the domestic practice of the non-medical
classes of the community endowed with sound observant
faculties has many times proved this mode of treatment
to be the surest, the most radical and the least fallacious
in practice.
fauces, they successfully combated the so called mucous angina—and quelled
some kinds of metrorrhagia with the leaves of savine, which can itself cause
metrorrhagia, without perceiving the homœopathic curative law. In cases
of constipation from incarcerated hernia and in ileus many medical men
found the constipating opium, in small doses, to be the most excellent and
certain remedy, without having the most distant idea of the homœopathic
therapeutic law exemplified in this case. They cured non-venereal ulcers of
the fauces with small doses of mercury, which is homeopathic to such
states -stopped some diarrhoeas with small doses of the purgative rhubarb-
cured hydrophobia with belladonna, that causes a similar affection, and
removed, as if by magic, the dangerous comatose state in acute fevers with
a small dose of the heating, stupefying opium; and yet they abuse homœo-
pathy, and persecute it with a fury that can only arise from the stings of an
evil conscience in a heart incapable of improvement.
42
INTRODUCTION.
In recent cases of frost-bitten limbs frozen sour crout
is applied or frictions of snow are used.¹
1 It is
on such examples of domestic practice that Mr. M. Lux
founds his so-called mode of cure by identicals and idem, which he
calls Isopathy, which some eccentric-minded persons have already adopted
as the non plus ultra of a therapeutic method, without knowing how they
could carry it out.
But if we examine these instances attentively we find that they do not
bear out these views.
The purely physical powers differ in the nature of their action on the
living organism from those of a dynamic medicinal kind.
Heat or cold of the air that surrounds us, or of the water, or of our food
and drink, occasion (as heat and cold) of themselves no absolute injury to a
healthy body; heat and cold are in their alternations essential to the main-
tenance of healthy life, consequently they are not of themselves medicine.
Heat and cold, therefore, act as curative agents in affections of the body,
not by virtue of their essential nature (not, therefore, as cold and heat per
se, not as things hurtful in themselves, as are the drugs, rhubarb, china, &c.,
even in the smallest doses), but only by virtue of their greater or smaller
quantity, that is, according to their degrees of temperature, just as (to take
an example from purely physical powers) a great weight of lead will bruise
my hand painfully, not by virtue of its essential nature as lead, for a thin
plate of lead would not bruise me, but in consequence of its quantity and
massive weight.
If, then, cold or heat be serviceable in bodily ailments like frost-bites or
burns, they are so solely on account of their degree of temperature, just as
they only inflict injury on the healthy body by their extreme degrees of
temperature.
Thus we find in these examples of successful domestic practice, that it is
not the prolonged application of the degree of cold in which the limb was
frozen that restores it isopathically (it would thereby be rendered quite
lifeless and dead), but a degree of cold that only approximates to that
(homœopathy), and which gradually rises to a comfortable temperature, as
frozen sour crout laid upon the frost-bitten hand in the temperature of the
room soon melts, gradually growing warmer from 32° or 33° (Fahr.) to the
temperature of the room, supposing that to be only 55°, and thus the limb is
recovered by physical homeopathy. In like manner, a hand scalded with
boiling water would not be cured isopathically by the application of boiling
water, but only by a somewhat lower temperature, as, for example, by
holding it in a vessel containing a fluid heated to 160°, which becomes every
minute less hot, and finally descends to the temperature of the room, where-
upon the scalded part is restored by homeopathy. Water in the act of
freezing cannot draw out the frost isopathically from potatoes and apples,
but this is effected by water only near the freezing-point.
So, to give another example from physical action, the injury resulting
from a blow on the forehead with a hard substance (a painful lump) is soon
diminished in pain and swelling by pressing on the spot for a considerable
time with the ball of the thumb, strongly at first, and then gradually less
INTRODUCTION.
43
The experienced cook holds his hand, which he has
scalded, at a certain distance from the fire, and does
not heed the increase of pain that takes place at first,
as he knows from experience that he can thereby in a
very short time, often in a few minutes, convert the burnt
part into healthy painless skin.¹
Other intelligent non-medical persons, as, for example,
the manufacturers of lackered ware, apply to a part
scalded with the hot varnish a substance that causes
a similar burning sensation, such as strong heated spirits
forcibly, homœopathically, but not by an equally hard blow with an equally
hard body, which would increase the evil isopathically.
The examples of cures by isopathy given in the book alluded to-muscular
contractions in human beings and spinal paralysis in a dog, which had been
caused by a chill, being rapidly cured by cold bathing-these events are
falsely explained by isopathy. What are called sufferings from a chill are
only nominally connected with cold, and often arise, in the bodies of those
predisposed to them, even from a draught of wind which was not at all cold.
Moreover, the manifold effects of a cold bath on the living organism, in
health and in disease, cannot be reduced to such a simple formula as to
warrant the construction of a system of such pretensions! That serpents'
bites, as is there stated, are most certainly cured by portions of the serpents,
must remain a mere fable of a former age, until such an improbable asser-
tion is authenticated by indubitable observations and experience, which it
certainly never will be. That, in fine, the saliva of a mad dog given to a
patient labouring under hydrophobia (in Russia), is said to have cured him
—that "is said" would not seduce any conscientious physician to imitate
such a hazardous experiment, or to construct a so-called isopathic system, so
dangerous and so highly improbable in its extended application, as has been
done (not by the modest author of the pamphlet entitled The Isopathy of
Contagions, Leipzic: Kollmann, but) by its eccentric supporters, especially
Dr. Gross (v. Allg. hom. Ztg., ii, p. 72), who vaunts this isopathy (æqualia
æqualibus) as the only proper therapeutic rule, and sees nothing in the
similia similibus but an indifferent substitute for it; ungratefully enough,
as he is entirely indebted to the similia similibus for all his fame and
fortune. (a)
So also Fernelius (Therap., lib. vi, cap. 20) considers that the best
remedy for a burnt part is to bring it near the fire, whereby the pain is
removed. John Hunter (On the Blood, Inflammation,, &c., p. 218) men-
tions the great injury that results from treating burns with cold water, and
gives a decided preference to approaching them to the fire, guided in this,
not by the traditional medical doctrines which (contraria contrariis) pre-
scribe cooling things for inflammation, but by experience, which teaches
that the application of a similar heat (similia similibus) is the most
salutary.
44
INTRODUCTION.
of wine, or oil of turpentine," and by that means cure
themselves in the course of a few hours, whereas cooling
salves, as they are well aware, would not effect a cure
¹ Sydenham (Opera, p. 271 [edit. Syd. Soc., p. 601]) says that spirits of
wine, repeatedly applied, is preferable to all other remedies in burns.
Benjamin Bell, too (System of Surgery, 3rd edit., 1789), acknowledges that
experience shows that homœopathic remedies only are efficacious. He says:
"One of the best applications to every burn of this kind is strong brandy or
any other ardent spirit; it seems to induce a momentary additional pain (see
below, § 157), but this soon subsides, and is succeeded by an agreeable
soothing sensation. It proves most effectual when the parts can be kept
immersed in it; but where this cannot be done, they should be kept con-
stantly moist with pieces of old linen soaked in spirits." To this I may add
that warm, and indeed very warm, alcohol is much more rapidly and much
more certainly efficacious, for it is much more homeopathic than when not
heated. And all experience confirms this in a most astonishing manner.
2 Edward Kentish, having to treat the workers in coal pits, who were so
often dreadfully burnt by the explosion of fire-damp, applied heated oil
of turpentine or alcohol, as the best remedy in the most extensive and
severest burns (Second Essay on Burns, London, 1798). No treatment can
be more homœopathic than this, nor is any more efficacious.
The estimable and experienced Heister (Institut. Chirurg., Tom. i, p. 33)
confirms this from his own observation and extols the application of turpen-
tine oil, of alcohol and of very hot poultices for this end, as hot as ever
they can be borne.
But the amazing superiority of the application to burns of these remedies,
which possess the power of exciting burning sensation and heat (and are
consequently homoeopathic), over palliative refrigerant remedies, is most
incontestably shown by pure experimentation, in which the two opposite
methods of treatment are employed for the sake of comparison, in burns of
equal intensity in the same body.
Thus Benjamin Bell (in Kühn's Phys. Med. Journ., Leipzic, 1801, Jun.,
p. 428), in the case of a lady who had scalded both arms, caused one to be
covered with oil of turpentine, and made her plunge the other into cold
water. In half an hour the first arm was well, but the other continued to be
painful for six hours longer; when it was withdrawn one instant from the
water she experienced much greater pain in it, and it required a much
longer time than the first for its cure.
John Anderson (Kentish, op. cit., p. 43) treated in a similar manner a lady
who had scalded herself with boiling grease.
"The face which was very red
and scalded and excessively painful was, a few minutes after the accident,
covered with oil of turpentine; her arm she had, of her own accord, plunged
into cold water, with which she desired to treat it for some hours. In the
course of seven hours her face looked much better, and the pain was relieved.
She had frequently renewed the cold water for the arm, but whenever she
withdrew it she complained of much pain, and, in truth, the inflammation
in it had increased. The following morning I found that she had had
during the night great pain in the arm; the inflammation had extended
INTRODUCTION.
45
in as many months, and cold water¹ would but make
matters worse.
The old experienced reaper, although he may not be in
the habit of drinking brandy, will not touch cold water
(contraria contrariis) when he has worked himself into a
violent feverish state in the heat of the sun-he knows
the danger of such a proceeding—but he takes a small
quantity of a heating liquor, a mouthful of brandy;
experience, the teacher of truth, has convinced him of
the great superiority and efficacy of this homœopathic
procedure, whereby his heat and fatigue are speedily
removed,2(a)
.
There have occasionally been physicians who vaguely
surmised that medicines cure analogous morbid states by
the power they possess of producing analogous morbid
symptoms.
3
αυ
4
Thus the author of the book: περὶ τόπων τῶν κατ᾽ ἄν-
OowTov, which is among the writings attributed to
θρωπον,
Hippocrates, has the following remarkable words: dià rà
above the elbow; several large blisters had risen, and thick eschars had
formed on the arm and hand; a warm poultice was then applied. The face
was completely free from pain, but emollient applications had to be used for
the arm for a fortnight longer, before it was cured."
Who can fail to perceive in this instance the infinite superiority of the
(homœopathic) treatment by means of remedies of similar action, over the
wretched treatment by opposites (contraria contrariis) of the antiquated
ordinary school of medicine!
1 John Hunter (loc. cit.) is not singular in asserting the great injury done
by treating burns with cold water. W. Fabricius of Hilden, also (De
Combustionibus libellus, Basil. 1607, cap. 5, p. 11), alleges that cold applica-
tions in burns are highly injurious and productive of the most serious
consequences; inflammation, suppuration and sometimes mortification are
caused by them.
2 Zimmermann (Ueber die Erfahrung, ii, p. 318) informs us that the
inhabitants of hot countries act in the same manner, with the best results,
and that, after being very much heated, they swallow a small quantity of
some spirituous liquor.
3 I do not bring forward the following passages from authors who had a
presentiment of homœopathy as proofs in support of this doctrine, which is
firmly established by its own intrinsic merits, but in order to avoid the
imputation of having suppressed these foreshadowings with the view of
claiming for myself the priority of the idea.
4 Basil. Froben., 1538, p. 72.
7
46
INTRODUCTION.
ὅμοια νοῦσος γίνεται, καὶ διὰ τὰ ὅμοια προσφερόμενα ἐκ
νοσεύντων υγιαίνονται,—διὰ τὸ ἐμέειν ἔμετος παύεται.()
ΤΟ
Later physicians have also felt and expressed the truth
of the homœopathic method of cure. Thus, for instance,
Boulduc¹ perceived that the purgative property of rhubarb
was the cause of its power to allay diarrhoea.
Detharding 2(a) guessed that the infusion of senna leaves
relieved colic in adults by virtue of its analogous action
in causing colic in healthy persons.
Bertholon³ confesses that in diseases electricity di-
minishes and removes pain very similar to that which
itself produces.
4
Thoury testifies that positive electricity possesses the
power of quickening the pulse, but when that is already
morbidly accelerated it diminishes its frequency.
5
Von Stoerk makes the following suggestion: "If
stramonium disorders the mind and produces mania in
healthy persons, ought we not to try if in cases of in-
sanity it cannot restore reason by producing a revolution
in the ideas ?"
6
But a Danish army physician, of the name of Stahl,
has expressed his conviction on this point in the most
unequivocal terms. "The rule generally acted on in
medicine," says he, "to treat by means of oppositely
acting remedies (contraria contrariis) is quite false and
the reverse of what ought to be; I am, on the contrary,
convinced that diseases will yield to, and be cured by,
remedies that produce a similar affection (similia similibus),
-burns by exposure to the fire, frost-bitten limbs by
the application of snow and the coldest water, inflamma-
tion and bruises by distilled spirits; and in like manner
I have treated a tendency to acidity of the stomach by a
very small dose of sulphuric acid with the most successful
¹ Mémoires de l'Académie Royale, 1710.
2 Eph. Nat. Cur., cent. x, obs. 76.
3 Medicin. Electrisitat., ii, pp. 15 and 282.
4 Mémoire lu à l'Académie de Caen.
5 Libell. de Stram., p. 8.
6 In Jo. Hammelii, Commentatio de Arthritide tam tartarea, quam scor-
butica, seu podagra et scorbuto, Budinge, 1738, viii, pp. 40-42.
INTRODUCTION.
47
result, in cases where a number of absorbent remedies
had been fruitlessly employed."
How near was the great truth sometimes of being
apprehended! But it was dismissed with a mere passing
thought, and thus the indispensable change of the anti-
quated medical treatment of disease, of the improper
therapeutic system hitherto in vogue, into a real, true,
and certain healing art, remained to be accomplished in
our own times.
ORGANON OF
OF MEDICINE."
$ 1.(a)
THE physician's high and only mission is to restore the
sick to health, to cure, as it is termed.¹
§ 2.
The highest ideal of a cure is rapid, gentle and perma-
nent restoration of the health, or removal and annihilation
of the disease in its whole extent, in the shortest, most
reliable, and most harmless way, on easily comprehensible
principles. (a)
§ 3.
If the physician clearly perceives what is to be cured
in diseases, that is to say, in every individual case of
disease (knowledge of disease, indication), if he clearly
1 His mission is not, however, to construct so-called systems, by inter-
weaving empty speculations and hypotheses concerning the internal essential
nature of the vital processes and the mode in which diseases originate in
the invisible interior of the organism (whereon so many physicians have
hitherto ambitiously wasted their talents and their time); nor is it to
attempt to give countless explanations regarding the phenomena in diseases
and their proximate cause (which must ever remain concealed), wrapped
in unintelligible words and an inflated abstract mode of expression, which
should sound very learned in order to astonish the ignorant-whilst sick
humanity sighs in vain for aid. Of such learned reveries (to which the
name of theoretic medicine is given, and for which special professorships
are instituted) we have had quite enough, and it is now high time that
all who call themselves physicians should at length cease to deceive suffering
mankind with mere talk, and begin now, instead, for once to act, that is,
really to help and to cure.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
49
perceives what is curative in medicines, that is to say, in
each individual medicine (knowledge of medicinal powers),
and if he knows how to adapt, according to clearly de-
fined principles, what is curative in medicines to what he
has discovered to be undoubtedly morbid in the patient,
so that recovery must ensue to adapt it, as well in
respect to the suitability of the medicine most appropriate
according to its mode of action to the case before him
(choice of the remedy, the medicine indicated), as also in
respect to the exact mode of preparation and quantity
of it required (proper dose), and the proper period for
repeating the dose ;—if, finally, he knows the obstacles to
recovery in each case and is aware how to remove them,
so that the restoration may be permanent: then he un-
derstands how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he
is a true practitioner of the healing art.(«)
-
§ 4.
He is likewise a preserver of health if he knows the
things that derange health and cause disease, and how to
remove them from persons in health. (a)
§ 5.
Useful to the physician in assisting him to cure are
the particulars of the most probable exciting cause of the
acute disease, as also the most significant points in the
whole history of the chronic disease, to enable him to
discover its fundamental cause, which is generally due to
a chronic miasm. In these investigations, the ascertain-
able physical constitution of the patient (especially when
the disease is chronic), his moral and intellectual character,
his occupation, mode of living and habits, his social and
domestic relations, his age, sexual function, &c., are to be
taken into consideration.(a)
§ 6.
The unprejudiced observer-well aware of the futility
of transcendental speculations which can receive no con-
firmation from experience-be his powers of penetration
4
50
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
ever so great, takes note of nothing in every individual
disease, except the changes in the health of the body and
of the mind (morbid phenomena, accidents, symptoms)
which can be perceived externally by means of the senses;
that is to say, he notices only the deviations from the
former healthy state of the now diseased individual,
which are felt by the patient himself, remarked by those
around him and observed by the physician. All these
perceptible signs represent the disease in its whole extent,
that is, together they form the true and only conceivable
portrait of the disease.¹(@)
7.
Now, as in a disease, from which no manifest exciting or
maintaining cause (causa occasionalis) has to be removed,
2
1 I know not, therefore, how it was possible for physicians at the sick-bed
to allow themselves to suppose that, without most carefully attending to the
symptoms and being guided by them in the treatment, they ought to seek
and could discover, only in the hidden and unknown interior, what there
was to be cured in the disease, arrogantly and ludicrously pretending that
they could, without paying much attention to the symptoms, discover the
alteration that had occurred in the invisible interior, and set it to rights
with (unknown!) medicines, and that such a procedure as this could alone be
called radical and rational treatment.
Is not, then, that which is cognizable by the senses in diseases through the
phenomena it displays, the disease itself in the eyes of the physician, since he
never can see the spiritual being that produces the disease, the vital force?
nor is it necessary that he should see it, but only that he should ascertain its
morbid actions, in order that he may thereby be enabled to cure the disease.
What else will the old school search for in the hidden interior of the
organism, as a prima causa morbi, whilst they reject as an object of cure
and contemptuously despise the sensible and manifest representation of
What
the disease, the symptoms, that so plainly address themselves to us?
else do they wish to cure in diseases, but these ?*
2 It is not necessary to say that every intelligent physician would first
remove this where it exists; the indisposition thereupon generally ceases
spontaneously. He will remove from the room strong-smelling flowers,
which have a tendency to cause syncope and hysterical sufferings; extract
from the cornea the foreign body that excites inflammation of the eye; loosen
* "The physician whose researches are directed towards the hidden rela-
tions in the interior of the organism, may daily err; but the homoeopathist
who grasps with requisite carefulness the whole group of symptoms, possesses
a sure guide; and if he succeed in removing the whole group of symptoms,
he has likewise most assuredly destroyed the internal, hidden cause of the
disease" (RAU, op. cit., p. 103).
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
51
we can perceive nothing but the morbid symptoms, it
must (regard being had to the possibility of a miasm, and
attention paid to the accessory circumstances, § 5) be the
symptoms alone by which the disease demands and points
to the remedy suited to relieve it-and, moreover, the
totality of these its symptoms, of this outwardly reflected
picture of the internal essence of the disease, that is, of the
affection of the vital force,(«) must be the principal, or
the sole means, whereby the disease can make known
what remedy it requires-the only thing that can deter-
mine the choice of the most appropriate remedy—and
thus, in a word, the totality of the symptoms must be
the principal, indeed the only thing the physician has to
take note of in every case of disease and to remove
by means of his art, in order that it shall be cured and
transformed into health. (a)
1
§ 8.
It is not conceivable, nor can it be proved by any
experience in the world, that, after removal of all
the symptoms of the disease and of the entire collec-
tion of the perceptible phenomena, there should or
could remain anything else besides health, or that the
the over-tight bandage on a wounded limb that threatens to cause mortifica-
tion, and apply a more suitable one, lay bare and put a ligature on the
wounded artery that produces fainting; endeavour to promote the expulsion
by vomiting of belladonna berries, &c., that may have been swallowed;
extract foreign substances that may have got into the orifices of the body
(the nose, gullet, ears, urethra, rectum, vagina); crush the vesical calculus;
open the imperforate anus of the new-born infant, &c.
In all times, the old school physicians, not knowing how else to give
relief, have sought to combat and if possible to suppress by medicines, here
and there, a single symptom from among a number in diseases-a one-sided
procedure, which, under the name of symptomatic treatment, has justly
excited universal contempt, because by it, not only was nothing gained, but
much harm was inflicted. A single one of the symptoms present is no more
the disease itself than a single foot is the man himself. This procedure was
so much the more reprehensible, that such a single symptom was only treated
by an antagonistic remedy (therefore only in an enantiopathic and palliative
manner), whereby, after a slight alleviation, it was subsequently only rendered
all the worse.
52
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
morbid alteration in the interior could remain uneradi-
cated.1
§ 9.(a)
In the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital
force (autocracy), the dynamis that animates the material
body (organism), rules with unbounded sway, and retains
all the parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious,
vital operation, as regards both sensations and functions,
so that our indwelling, reason-gifted mind can freely
employ this living, healthy instrument for the higher
purposes of our existence.
§ 10.
The material organism, without the vital force, is
capable of no sensation, no function, no self-preservation;2
it derives all sensation and performs all the functions of
life solely by means of the immaterial being (the vital
force) which animates the material organism in health and
in disease.
§ 11.
When a person falls ill, it is only this spiritual, self-
1 («) When a patient has been cured of his disease by a true physician, in
such a manner that no trace of the disease, no morbid symptom, remains, and
all the signs of health have permanently returned, how can anyone, without
offering an insult to common sense, affirm that in such an individual the
whole bodily disease still remains in the interior? And yet the chief of the
old school, Hufeland, asserts this in the following words: "Homœopathy can
remove the symptoms, but the disease remains." (Vide Homöopathie, p. 27,
1. 19.) This he maintains partly from mortification at the progress made by
homœopathy to the benefit of mankind, partly because he still holds tho-
roughly material notions respecting disease, which he is still unable to regard
as a state of being of the organism wherein it is dynamically altered by the
morbidly deranged vital force, as an altered state of health, but he views the
disease as a something material, which, after the cure is completed, may still
remain lurking in some corner in the interior of the body, in order, some day
during the most vigorous health, to burst forth at its pleasure with its
material presence! So dreadful
So dreadful is still the blindness of the old pathology!
No wonder that it could only produce a system of therapeutics which is solely
occupied with scouring out the poor patient.
2 It is dead, and now only subject to the power of the external physical
world; it decays, and is again resolved into its chemical constituents.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
53
acting (automatic) vital force, everywhere present in his
organism, that is primarily deranged by the dynamic
influence upon it of a morbific agent inimical to life; it
is only the vital force, deranged to such an abnormal
state, that can furnish the organism with its disagreeable
sensations, and incline it to the irregular processes which
we call disease; for, as a power invisible in itself, and
only cognizable by its effects on the organism, its
morbid derangement only makes itself known by the
manifestation of disease in the sensations and functions of
those parts of the organism exposed to the senses of the
observer and physician, that is, by morbid symptoms, and
in no other way can it make itself known.
§ 12.
It is the morbidly affected vital force alone that pro-
duces diseases,¹ so that the morbid phenomena perceptible
to our senses express at the same time all the internal
change, that is to say, the whole morbid derangement of
the internal dynamis; in a word, they reveal the whole
disease; consequently, also, the disappearance under
treatment of all the morbid phenomena and of all the
morbid alterations that differ from the healthy vital opera-
tions, certainly effects and necessarily implies the resto-
ration of the integrity of the vital force and, therefore,
the recovered health of the whole organism.
§ 13.
Therefore disease (that does not come within the
province of manual surgery) considered, as it is by the
allopathists, as a thing separate from the living whole,
from the organism and its animating vital force, and hidden
in the interior, be it of ever so subtile a character, is an
absurdity, that could only be imagined by minds of a
1 How the vital force causes the organism to display morbid phenomena,
that is, how it produces disease, it would be of no practical utility to the
physician to know, and therefore it will for ever remain concealed from him;
only what it is necessary for him to know of the disease and what is fully
sufficient for enabling him to cure it, has the Lord of life revealed to his
senses.
54
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
materialistic stamp, and has for thousands of years given
to the prevailing system of medicine all those pernicious
impulses that have made it a truly mischievous [non-
healing] art.
§ 14.
There is, in the interior of man, nothing morbid that
is curable and no invisible morbid alteration that is
curable which does not make itself known to the accu-
rately observing physician by means of morbid signs and
symptoms—an arrangement in perfect conformity with
the infinite goodness of the all-wise Preserver of human
life.
§ 15.
The affection of the morbidly deranged, spirit-like
dynamis (vital force) that animates our body in the in-
visible interior, and the totality of the outwardly cog-
nizable symptoms produced by it in the organism and
representing the existing malady, constitute a whole;
they are one and the same. The organism is indeed the
material instrument of the life, but it is not conceivable
without the animation imparted to it by the instinctively
perceiving and regulating vital force (just as the vital
force is not conceivable without the organism), conse-
quently the two together constitute a unity, although in
thought our mind separates this unity into two distinct
conceptions for the sake of facilitating the comprehension.
of it.
§ 16.
Our vital force, as a spirit-like dynamis, cannot be at-
tacked and affected by injurious influences on the healthy
organism caused by the external inimical forces that
disturb the harmonious play of life, otherwise than in
a spirit-like (dynamic) way, and in like manner, all
such morbid derangements (diseases) cannot be removed
from it by the physician in any other way than by the
spirit-like (dynamic, virtual) alterative powers of the
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
55
serviceable medicines acting upon our spirit-like vital
force, which perceives them through the medium of the
sentient faculty of the nerves everywhere present in the
organism, so that it is only by their dynamic action on the
vital force that remedies are able to re-establish and do actu-
ally re-establish health and vital harmony, after the changes
in the health of the patient cognizable by our senses (the
totality of the symptoms) have revealed the disease to the
carefully observing and investigating physician as fully
as was requisite in order to enable him to cure it.
§ 17.
Now, as in the cure effected by the removal of the
whole of the perceptible signs and symptoms of the dis-
ease the internal alteration of the vital force to which
the disease is due-consequently the whole of the disease.
-is at the same time removed,¹ it follows that the
physician has only to remove the whole of the symptoms
in order, at the same time, to abrogate and annihilate the
internal change, that is to say, the morbid derangement of
the vital force-consequently the totality of the disease,
the disease itself. But when the disease is annihilated the
¹ A warning dream, a superstitious fancy, or a solemn prediction that death
would occur at a certain day or at a certain hour, has not unfrequently pro-
duced all the signs of commencing and increasing disease, of approaching
death and death itself at the hour announced, which could not happen with-
out the simultaneous production of the inward change (corresponding to the
state observed externally); and hence in such cases all the morbid signs
indicative of approaching death have frequently been dissipated by an iden-
tical cause, by some cunning deception or persuasion to a belief in the
contrary, and health suddenly restored, which could not have happened without
the removal, by means of this moral remedy, of the internal and external
morbid change that threatened death.
2 It is only thus that God, the Preserver of mankind, could reveal His
wisdom and goodness in reference to the cure of the diseases to which man is
liable here below, by showing to the physician what he had to remove in
diseases in order to annihilate them and thus re-establish health. But what
would we think of His wisdom and goodness if He had shrouded in mys-
terious obscurity that which was to be cured in diseases (as is asserted by the
dominant school of medicine, which affects to possess a supernatural insight
into the inner nature of things), and shut it up in the hidden interior,
and thus rendered it impossible for man to know the malady accurately,
consequently impossible for him to cure it?
56
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
health is restored, and this is the highest, the sole aim of
the physician who knows the true object of his mission,
which consists not in learned-sounding prating, but in
giving aid to the sick. (a)
§ 18.
From this indubitable truth, that besides the totality
symptoms nothing can by any means be discovered in
diseases wherewith they could express their need of aid,
it follows undeniably that the sum of all the symptoms in
each individual case of disease must be the sole indication,
the sole guide to direct us in the choice of a remedy.
$ 19.
Now, as diseases are nothing more than alterations in
the state of health of the healthy individual which express
themselves by morbid signs, and the cure is also only
possible by a change to the healthy condition of the state of
health of the diseased individual, it is very evident that
medicines could never cure diseases if they did not
possess the power of altering man's state of health which
depends on sensations and functions; indeed, that their
curative power must be owing solely to this power they
possess of altering man's state of health.
$ 20.(a)
This spirit-like power to alter man's state of health (and
hence to cure diseases) which lies hidden in the inner
nature of medicines can never be discovered by us by a
mere effort of reason; it is only by experience of the phe-
nomena it displays when acting on the state of health of
man that we can become clearly cognizant of it.
§ 21.
Now, as it is undeniable that the curative principle in
medicines is not in itself perceptible, and as in pure ex-
periments with medicines conducted by the most accurate
observers, nothing can be observed that can constitute
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
57
them medicines or remedies except that power of causing
distinct alterations in the state of health of the human
body, and particularly in that of the healthy individual,
and of exciting in him various definite morbid symptoms;
so it follows that when medicines act as remedies, they
can only bring their curative property into play by means
of this their power of altering man's state of health by
the production of peculiar symptoms; and that, therefore,
we have only to rely on the morbid phenomena which the
medicines produce in the healthy body as the sole pos-
sible revelation of their indwelling curative power, in
order to learn what disease-producing power, and at the
same time what disease-curing power, each individual
medicine possesses.
$ 22.
But as nothing is to be observed in diseases that must
be removed in order to change them into health besides
the totality of their signs and symptoms, and likewise
medicines can show nothing curative besides their ten-
dency to produce morbid symptoms in healthy persons (a)
and to remove them in diseased persons; it follows, on
the one hand, that medicines only become remedies and
capable of annihilating diseases, because the medicinal
substance, by exciting certain effects and symptoms, that
is to say, by producing a certain artificial morbid state,
removes and abrogates the symptoms already present, to
wit, the natural morbid state we wish to cure. On the
other hand, it follows that, for the totality of the sym-
ptoms of the disease to be cured, a medicine must be
sought which (according as experience shall prove
whether the morbid symptoms are most readily, certainly,
and permanently removed and changed into health by
similar or opposite medicinal symptoms¹) has a tendency
to produce similar or opposite symptoms.
The other possible mode of employing medicines for diseases besides
these two (the allopathic method), in which medicines are given, whose sym-
ptoms have no direct pathological relation to the morbid state, consequently
are neither similar nor opposite, but quite heterogeneous to the symptoms of
·
58
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 23.
All pure experience, however, and all accurate research
convince us that persistent symptoms of disease are
far from being removed and annihilated by opposite sym-
ptoms of medicines (as in the antipathic, enantiopathic
or palliative method), that, on the contrary, after tran-
sient, apparent alleviation, they break forth again, only
with increased intensity, and become manifestly aggra-
vated (see §§ 58–62 and 69).
§ 24.
There remains, therefore, no other mode of employing
medicines in diseases that promises to be of service besides
the homoeopathic, by means of which we seek, for the
totality of the symptoms of the case of disease, a medi-
cine which among all medicines (whose pathogenetic
effects are known from having been tested in healthy
individuals) has the power and the tendency to produce
an artificial morbid state most similar to that of the case
of disease in question.
§ 25,(a)
Now, however, in all careful trials, pure experi-
ence,¹ the sole and infallible oracle of the healing art,
the disease, is, as I have shown above, in the Introduction (Review of the
therapeutics, allopathy and palliative treatment that have hitherto been
practised in the old school of medicine), merely an imperfect and injurious imi-
tation of the extremely imperfect efforts of the unintelligent, merely instinctive
vital force, which, when made ill by noxious agents, strives to save itself at
whatever sacrifice by the production and continuance of morbid irritation in the
organism—an imitation, consequently, of the crude vital force which was
implanted in our organism in order to preserve our life in health, in the most
beautiful harmony; but when deranged by disease, was so constituted as to
admit of being again changed to health (homoeopathically) by the intelligent
physician, but not to cure itself, for which the little power it possesses is so
far from being a pattern to be copied, that all the changes and symptoms it
produces in the (morbidly deranged) organism are just the disease itself.
But this injudicious system of therapeutics of the old school of medicine can
no more be passed by unnoticed than can history omit to record the thousands
of years of oppression to which mankind has been subjected under the irra-
tional, despotic Governments.
1 I do not mean that sort of experience of which the ordinary practitioners
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
59
teaches us that actually that medicine which, in its
action on the healthy human body, has demonstrated its
power of producing the greatest number of symptoms
similar to those observable in the case of disease under
treatment, does also, in doses of suitable potency and
attenuation, rapidly, radically and permanently remove
the totality of the symptoms of this morbid state, that is
to say (§§ 6-16), the whole disease present, and change
it into health; and that all medicines cure, without excep-
tion, those diseases whose symptoms most nearly resemble
their own, and leave none of them uncured.
§ 26.(a)
This depends on the following homoeopathic law of
nature which was sometimes, indeed, vaguely surmised
but not hitherto fully recognised, and to which is due
every real cure that has ever taken place:
A weaker dynamic affection is permanently extinguished
in the living organism by a stronger one, if the latter
(whilst differing in kind) is very similar to the former in
its manifestations.¹
of the old school boast, after they have for years worked away with a lot
of complex prescriptions on a number of diseases which they never carefully
investigated, but which, faithful to the tenets of their school, they considered
as already described in works of systematic pathology, and dreamed that they
could detect in them some imaginary morbific matter, or ascribed to them
some other hypothetical internal abnormality. They always saw something
in them, but knew not what it was they saw, and they got results, from the
complex forces acting on an unknown object, that no human being but only
a God could have unravelled-results from which nothing can be learned, no
experience gained. Fifty years' experience of this sort is like fifty years of
looking into a kaleidoscope filled with unknown coloured objects, and per-
petually turning round; thousands of ever-changing figures and no account-
ing for them!
¹ Thus are cured both physical affections and moral maladies.(«) How is it
that in the early dawn the brilliant Jupiter vanishes from the gaze of the
beholder? By a stronger very similar power acting on his optic nerve, the
brightness of approaching day!-In situations replete with fœtid odours, where-
with is it usual to soothe effectually the offended olfactory nerves ? With snuff,
that affects the sense of smell in a similar but stronger manner! No music, no
sugared cake, which act on the nerves of other senses, can cure this olfactory
disgust. How does the soldier cunningly stifle the piteous cries of him who
runs the gauntlet from the ears of the compassionate bystanders? By the
60
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 27.(a)
The curative power of medicines, therefore, depends
on their symptoms, similar to the disease but superior to
it in strength (§§ 12-26), so that each individual case of
disease is most surely, radically, rapidly and permanently
annihilated and removed only by a medicine capable of
producing (in the human system) in the most similar and
complete manner the totality of its symptoms, which at
the same time are stronger than the disease.
$28.
As this natural law of cure manifests itself in every
pure experiment and every true observation in the world,
the fact is consequently established; it matters little
what may be the scientific explanation of how it takes
place; and I do not attach much importance to the
attempts made to explain it. But the following view
seems to commend itself as the most probable one, as it
is founded on premises derived from experience.()
§ 29.(a)
As every disease (not strictly belonging to the domain of
surgery) depends only on a peculiar morbid derangement
of our vital force in sensations and functions, when a
homœopathic cure of the vital force deranged by natural
disease is accomplished by the administration of a medicinal
shrill notes of the fife commingled with the roll of the noisy drum! And the
distant roar of the enemy's cannon that inspires his army with fear? By
the loud boom of the big drum! For neither the one nor the other would the
distribution of a brilliant piece of uniform nor a reprimand to the regiment
suffice. In like manner, mourning and sorrow will be effaced from the mind
by the account of another and still greater cause for sorrow happening to
another, even though it be a mere fiction. The injurious consequences of too
great joy will be removed by drinking coffee, which produces an excessively
joyous state of mind. Nations like the Germans, who have for centuries
been gradually sinking deeper and deeper in soulless apathy and degrading
serfdom, must first be trodden still deeper in the dust by the Western Con-
queror, until their situation became intolerable; their mean opinion of them-
selves was thereby overstrained and removed; they again became alive to
their dignity as men, and then, for the first time, they raised their heads as
Germans.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
61
agent selected on account of an accurate similarity of sym-
ptoms, a somewhat stronger, similar, artificial morbid
affection is brought into contact with and, as it were,
pushed into the place of the weaker, similar, natural mor-
bid irritation, against which the instinctive vital force, now
merely (though in a stronger degree) medicinally diseased,
is then compelled to direct an increased amount of energy,
but, on account of the shorter duration of the action¹ of the
medicinal agent that now morbidly affects it, the vital force
soon overcomes this, and as it was in the first instance re-
lieved from the natural morbid affection, so it is now at
last freed from the substituted artificial (medicinal) one, and
hence is enabled again to carry on healthily the vital opera-
tions of the organism. (a) This highly probable explanation
of the process rests on the following axioms.
§ 30.
The human body appears to admit of being much more
powerfully affected in its health by medicines (partly
because we have the regulation of the dose in our own
power) than by natural morbid stimuli-for natural
diseases are cured and overcome by suitable medicines.
§ 31.
The inimical forces, partly psychical, partly physical,
to which our terrestrial existence is exposed, which are
The short duration of the action of the artificial morbific forces, which
we term medicines, makes it possible that, although they are stronger than
the natural diseases, they can yet be much more easily overcome by the vital
force than can the weaker natural diseases, which, solely in consequence of
the longer, generally lifelong, duration of their action (psora, syphilis,
sycosis), can never be vanquished and extinguished by it alone, until the phy-
sician affects the vital force in a sronger manner by an agent that produces a
disease very similar, but stronger, to wit, a homœopathic medicine, which,
when taken (or smelt), is, as it were, forced upon the unintelligent, instinctive
vital force, and substituted in the place of the former natural morbid affec-
tion, by which means the vital force then remains merely medicinally ill, but
only for a short time, because the action of the medicine (the time in which
the medicinal disease excited by it runs its course) does not last long. The
cures of diseases of many years' duration (§ 46), by the occurrence of smallpox
and measles (both of which run a course of only a few weeks), are processes
of a similar character. («)
62
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
1
termed morbific noxious agents, do not possess the power
of morbidly deranging the health of man uncondition-
ally; but we are made ill by them only when our
organism is sufficiently disposed and susceptible to the
attack of the morbific cause that may be present, and to
be altered in its health, deranged and made to undergo
abnormal sensations and functions-hence they do not
produce disease in every one nor at all times.
§ 32.
But it is quite otherwise with the artificial morbific
agents which we term medicines. Every real medicine,
namely, acts at all times, under all circumstances, on
every living human being, and produces in him its pecu-
liar symptoms (distinctly perceptible, if the dose be large
enough), so that evidently every living human organism
is liable to be affected, and, as it were, inoculated with
the medicinal disease at all times, and absolutely (uncon-
ditionally), which, as before said, is by no means the case
with the natural diseases.
§ 33.
2
In accordance with this fact, it is undeniably shown
by all experience that the living human organism is
much more disposed and has a greater liability to be
acted on, and to have its health deranged by medicinal
1 When I call disease a derangement of man's state of health, I am far
from wishing thereby to give a hyperphysical explanation of the internal
nature of diseases generally, or of any case of disease in particular. It is only
intended by this expression to intimate, what it can be proved diseases are not
and cannot be, that they are not mechanical or chemical alterations of the
material substance of the body, and not dependent on a material morbific
substance, but that they are merely spiritual dynamic derangements of the
life.
2 A striking fact in corroboration of this is, that whilst previously to the
year 1801, when the smooth scarlatina of Sydenham still occasionally pre-
vailed epidemically among children, it attacked without exception all children
who had escaped it in a former epidemic; in a similar epidemic which I
witnessed in Königslutter, on the contrary, all the children who took in time
a very small dose of belladonna remained unaffected by this highly infectious
infantile disease. If medicines can protect from a disease that is raging
around, they must possess a vastly superior power of affecting our vital force.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
63
powers, than by morbific noxious agents and infectious
miasms, or, in other words, that the morbific noxious
agents possess a power of morbidly deranging man's health
that is subordinate and conditional, often very conditional;
whilst medicinal agents have an absolute unconditional
power, greatly superior to the former.
§ 34.
The greater strength of the artificial diseases produ-
cible by medicines is, however, not the sole cause
of their power to cure natural diseases. In order that
they may effect a cure, it is before all things requisite that
they should be capable of producing in the human body
an artificial disease as similar as possible to the disease
to be cured, in order, by means of this similarity, con-
joined with its somewhat greater strength, to substitute
themselves for the natural morbid affection, and thereby
deprive the latter of all influence upon the vital force.
This is so true, that no previously existing disease can
be cured, even by Nature herself, by the accession of a
new dissimilar disease, be it ever so strong, and just as
little can it be cured by medical treatment with drugs
which are incapable of producing a similar morbid con-
dition in the healthy body.
§ 35.
In order to illustrate this, we shall consider in three
different cases, as well what happens in nature when two
dissimilar natural diseases meet together in one person, as
also the result of the ordinary medical treatment of
diseases with unsuitable allopathic drugs, which are
incapable of producing an artificial morbid condition
similar to the disease to be cured, whereby it will appear
that even Nature herself is unable to remove a dissimilar
disease already present by one that is unhomoeopathic, even
though it be stronger, and just as little is the unhomoeo-
pathic employment of even the strongest medicines ever
capable of curing any disease whatsoever.
64
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 36.
I. If the two dissimilar diseases meeting together
in the human being be of equal strength, or still more if
the older one be the stronger, the new disease will be
repelled by the old one from the body and not allowed to
affect it. A patient suffering from a severe chronic
disease will not be infected by a moderate autumnal
dysentery or other epidemic disease. The plague of the
Levant, according to Larry,' does not break out where
scurvy is prevalent, and persons suffering from eczema
are not infected by it. Rachitis, Jenner alleges, prevents
vaccination from taking effect. Those suffering from
pulmonary consumption are not liable to be attacked by
epidemic fevers of a not very violent character, accord-
ing to Von Hildenbrand.
§ 37.
So, also, under ordinary medical treatment, an old
chronic disease remains uncured and unaltered if it is
treated according to the common allopathic method, that
is to say, with medicines that are incapable of producing in
healthy individuals a state of health similar to the dis-
ease, even though the treatment should last for years and
is not of too violent character. This is daily witnessed
in practice, it is therefore unnecessary to give any illus-
trative examples.
case
$ 38.(a)
II. Or the new dissimilar disease is the stronger.
In this
the disease under which the patient originally
laboured, being the weaker, will be kept back and sus-
pended by the accession of the stronger one, until the
latter shall have run its course or been cured, and then
the old one reappears uncured. Two children affected
with a kind of epilepsy remained free from epileptic
attacks after infection with ringworm (tinea); but as
soon as the eruption on the head was gone the epilepsy
Mémoires et Observations," in the Description de l'Égypte, tom. i
1 66
-
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
65
1
The itch,
3
returned just as before, as Tulpius ¹ observed.
as Schöpf² saw, disappeared on the occurrence of the
scurvy, but
but after
after the cure of the latter it again
broke out. So also the pulmonary phthisis remained
stationary when the patient was attacked by a violent
typhus, but went on again after the latter had run its
course. If mania occur in a consumptive patient, the
phthisis with all its symptoms is removed by the former;
but if that go off, the phthisis returns immediately and
proves fatal.4
When measles and smallpox are prevalent
at the same time, and both attack the same child, the
measles that had already broken out is generally checked
by the smallpox that came somewhat later; nor does the
measles resume its course until after the cure of the
smallpox; but it not infrequently happens that the
inoculated smallpox is suspended for four days by
the supervention of the measles, as observed by Manget,"
after the desquamation of which the smallpox completes
its course. Even when the inoculation of the smallpox
had taken effect for six days, and the measles then broke
out, the inflammation of the inoculation remained sta-
tionary and the smallpox did not ensue until the measles
had completed its regular course of seven days. In an
epidemic of measles, that disease attacked many indi-
viduals on the fourth or fifth day after the inoculation of
smallpox and prevented the development of the small-
pox until it had completed its own course, whereupon the
smallpox appeared and proceeded regularly to its termina-
tion. The true, smooth, erysipelatous-looking scarlatina
of Sydenham, with sore throat, was checked on the fourth
6
8
¹ Obs., lib. i, obs. 8.
2 In Hufeland's Journal, xv, 2.
3 Chevalier, in Hufeland's Neuesten Annalen der französischen Heilkunde,
ii, p. 192.
4 Mania phthisi superveniens eam cum omnibus suis phænomenis auffert,
verum mox redit phthisis et occidit, abeunte mania. Reil, Memorab., fasc. iii,
v, p. 171.
5 In the Edinb. Med. Comment., pt. i, 1.
6 John Hunter, On the Venereal Disease, p. 5.
'Rainey, in the Edinb. Med. Comment., iii, p. 480.
8 Very accurately described by Withering and Plenciz, but differing greatly
5
66
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
day by the eruption of cow-pox, which ran its regular
course, and not till it was ended did the scarlatina again
establish itself; but on another occasion, as both diseases
seem to be of equal strength, the cow-pox was suspended
on the eighth day by the supervention of the true, smooth
scarlatina of Sydenham, and the red areola of the former
disappeared until the scarlatina was gone, whereon the
cow-pox immediately resumed its course, and went on to
its regular termination.¹ The measles suspended the
cow-pox; on the eighth day, when the cow-pox had
nearly attained its climax, the measles broke out; the
cow-pox now remained stationary, and did not resume and
complete its course until the desquamation of the measles
had taken place, so that on the sixteenth day it presented
the appearance it otherwise would have shown on the
tenth day, as Kortum observed.2
Even after the measles had broken out the cow-pox
inoculation took effect, but did not run its course until
the measles had disappeared, as Kortum likewise wit-
nessed.8
I myself saw the mumps (angina parotidea) imme-
diately disappear when the cow-pox inoculation had taken
effect and had nearly attained its height; it was not
until the complete termination of the cow-pox and the
disappearance of its red areola that this febrile tume-
faction of the parotid and submaxillary glands, that is
caused by a peculiar miasm, reappeared and ran its regular
course of seven days.
And thus it is with all dissimilar diseases; the stronger
suspends the weaker (when they do not complicate one
another, which is seldom the case with acute diseases),
but they never cure one another.
from the purpura (or Roodvonk), which is often erroneously denominated
scarlet fever. It is only of late years that the two, which were originally very
different diseases, have come to resemble each other in their symptoms.
1 Jenner, in Medicinische Annalen, August, 1800, p. 747.
2 In Hufeland's Journal der praktischen Arzeneikunde, xx, 3, p. 50.
3 Loc. cit,
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
67
$ 39.(a)
Now the adherents of the ordinary school of medicine
saw all this for so many centuries; they saw that Nature
herself cannot cure any disease by the accession of
another, be it ever so strong, if the new disease be
dissimilar to that already present in the body. What
shall we think of them, that they nevertheless went on
treating chronic diseases with allopathic remedies, namely,
with medicines and prescriptions capable of producing
God knows what morbid state-almost invariably, how-
ever, one dissimilar to the disease to be cured? And
even though physicians did not hitherto observe nature
attentively, the miserable results of their treatment should
have taught them that they were pursuing an inappro-
priate, a false path. Did they not perceive when they
employed, as was their custom, an aggressive allopathic
treatment in a chronic disease, that thereby they only
created an artificial disease dissimilar to the original one,
which, as long as it was kept up, merely held in abey-
ance, merely suppressed, merely suspended the original
disease, which latter, however, always returned, and
must return, as soon as the diminished strength of the
patient no longer admitted of a continuance of the allo-
pathic attacks on the life? Thus the itch exanthema
certainly disappears very soon from the skin under the
employment of violent purgatives, frequently repeated;
but when the patient can no longer stand the factitious
(dissimilar) disease of the bowels, and can take no more
purgatives, then either the cutaneous eruption breaks out
as before, or the internal psora displays itself in some bad
symptom, and the patient, in addition to his undiminished
original disease, has to endure the misery of a painful
ruined digestion and impaired strength to boot. So, also,
when the ordinary physicians keep up artificial ulcerations
of the skin and issues on the exterior of the body, with
the view of thereby eradicating a chronic disease, they
can NEVER attain their object by so doing, they can NEVER
cure them by that means, as such artificial cutaneous
68
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
ulcers are quite alien and allopathic to the internal affec-
tion; but inasmuch as the irritation produced by several
issues is at least sometimes a stronger (dissimilar) dis-
ease than the indwelling malady, the latter is thereby
sometimes silenced and suspended for a week or two.
But it is only suspended, and that for a very short time,
whilst the patient's powers are gradually worn out.
Epilepsy, suppressed for many years by means of issues,
invariably recurred, and in an aggravated form, when
they were allowed to heal up, as Pechlin¹ and others
testify. But purgatives for itch, and issues for epilepsy,
cannot be more heterogeneous, more dissimilar deranging
agents cannot be more allopathic, more exhausting
modes of treatment-than are the customary pre-
scriptions, composed of unknown ingredients, used in
ordinary practice for the other nameless, innumerable
forms of disease. These likewise do nothing but debili-
tate, and only suppress or suspend the malady for a short
time without being able to cure it, and when used for a
long time always add a new morbid state to the old
disease.
§ 40.
.
III. Or the new disease, after having long acted on
the organism, at length joins the old one that is dissimilar
to it, and forms with it a complex disease, so that each
of them occupies a particular locality in the organism,
namely, the organs peculiarly adapted for it, and, as it
were, only the place specially belonging to it, whilst it
leaves the rest to the other disease that is dissimilar to it.
Thus a syphilitic patient may become psoric, and vice
versâ. As two diseases dissimilar to each other, they
cannot remove, cannot cure one another. At first the
venereal symptoms are kept in abeyance and suspended
when the psoric eruption begins to appear; in course of
time, however (as the syphilis is at least as strong as the
psora), the two join together, that is, each involves those
2
1 Obs. phys. med., lib. ii, obs. 30.
2 From careful experiments and cures of complex diseases of this kind, I
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
69
parts of the organism only which are most adapted for
it, and the patient is thereby rendered more diseased and
more difficult to cure.
When two dissimilar acute infectious diseases meet, as,
for example, smallpox and measles, the one usually sus-
pends the other, as has been before observed; yet there
have also been severe epidemics of this kind, where, in
rare cases, two dissimilar acute diseases occurred simul-
taneously in one and the same body, and for a short time
combined, as it were, with each other. During an
epidemic, in which smallpox and measles were prevalent
at the same time, among three hundred cases (in which
these diseases avoided or suspended one another, and the
measles attacked patients twenty days after the smallpox
broke out, the smallpox, however, from seventeen to
eighteen days after the appearance of the measles, so that
the first disease had previously completed its regular
course) there was yet one single case in which P. Russell'
met with both these dissimilar diseases in one person
at the same time. Rainey witnessed the simultaneous
occurrence of
of smallpox and measles in two girls.
J. Maurice,³ in his whole practice, only observed two
such cases.
Similar cases are to be found in Ettmüller's¹
works, and in the writings of a few others.
2
5
Zencker saw cow-pox run its regular course along
with measles and along with purpura.
The cow-pox went on its course undisturbed during a
mercurial treatment for syphilis, as Jenner saw.
am now firmly convinced that no real amalgamation of the two takes place,
but that in such cases the one exists in the organism beside the other only,
each in the parts that are adapted for it, and their cure will be completely
effected by a judicious alternation of the best mercurial preparation, with the
remedies specific for the psora, each given in the most suitable dose and form.
¹ Vide Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Med. and Chir.
Knowledge, ii.
2 In the Edinb. Med. Comment., iii, p. 480.
³ In Med. and Phys. Journ., 1805.
4 Opera, ii, p. i., cap. 10.
5 In Hufeland's Journal, xvii.
70
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 41.
Much more frequent than the natural diseases associ-
ating with and complicating one another in the same
body are the morbid complications resulting from the art
of the ordinary practitioner, which the inappropriate
medical treatment (the allopathic method) is apt to pro-
duce by the long-continued employment of unsuitable
drugs. To the natural disease, which it is proposed to
cure, there are then added, by the constant repetition of
the unsuitable medicinal agent, the new, often very
tedious, morbid conditions which might be anticipated
from the peculiar powers of the drug; these gradually
coalesce with and complicate the chronic malady which
is dissimilar to them (which they were unable to cure by
similarity of action, that is, homoeopathically), adding to
the old disease a new, dissimilar, artificial malady of a
chronic nature, and thus give the patient a double in
place of a single disease, that is to say, render him much
worse and more difficult to cure, often quite uncurable.
Many of the cases for which advice is asked in medical
journals, as also the records of other cases in medical
writings, attest the truth of this. Of a similar character
are the frequent cases in which the venereal chancrous
disease, complicated especially with psora or with the
dyscrasia of condylomatous gonorrhoea, is not cured by
long-continued or frequently repeated treatment with
large doses of unsuitable mercurial preparations, but
assumes its place in the organism beside the chronic
mercurial affection that has been in the meantime gra-
dually developed, and thus along with it often forms a
hideous monster of complicated disease (under the general
name of masked venereal disease), which then, when not
quite incurable, can only be transformed into health with
the greatest difficulty.
1 For mercury, besides the morbid symptoms which by virtue of similarity
can cure the venereal disease homoeopathically, has among its effects many
others unlike those of syphilis, which, if it be employed in large doses, cause
new maladies and commit great ravages in the body, especially when compli-
cated with psora, as is so frequently the case.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
71
§ 42.
.
Nature herself permits, as has been stated, in some
cases, the simultaneous occurrence of two (indeed, of
three) natural diseases in one and the same body. This
complication, however, it must be remarked, happens only
in the case of two dissimilar diseases, which according to
the eternal laws of nature do not remove, do not annihi-
late and cannot cure one another, but, as it seems, both
(or all three) remain, as it were, separate in the organism,
and each takes possession of the parts and systems pecu-
liarly appropriate to it, which, on account of the want of
resemblance of these maladies to each other, can very
well happen without disparagement to the unity of life.
§ 43,(a)
Totally different, however, is the result when two similar
diseases meet together in the organism, that is to say,
when to the disease already present, a stronger similar
one is added. In such cases we see how a cure can be
effected by the operations of nature, and we get a lesson
as to how man ought to cure.
§ 44.
Two diseases similar to each other can neither (as is
asserted of dissimilar diseases in I) repel one another,
nor (as has been shown of dissimilar diseases in II) sus-
pend one another, so that the old one shall return after
the new one has run its course; and just as little can two
similar diseases (as has been demonstrated in III respect-
ing dissimilar affections) exist beside each other in the
same organism, or together form a double complex disease.
§ 45.
No! two diseases, differing, it is true, in kind,¹ but
very similar in their phenomena and effects and in the
sufferings and symptoms they severally produce, invari-
ably annihilate one another whenever they meet together
1 Vide supra, § 26, note.
72
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
1
in the organism; the stronger disease, namely, annihilates
the weaker, and that for this simple reason, because the
stronger morbific power when it invades the system, by
reason of its similarity of action involves precisely the
same parts of the organism that were previously affected
by the weaker morbid irritation, which, consequently, can
no longer act on these parts, but is extinguished; or (in
other words) because, whenever the vital force, deranged
by the primary disease, is more strongly attacked by the
new, very similar, but stronger dynamic morbific power,
it therefore now remains affected by the latter alone,
whereby the original, similar but weaker disease must,
as a mere dynamic power without material substratum,
cease to exercise any further morbid influence on the
vital force, consequently it must cease to exist.
§ 46.
Many examples might be adduced of diseases which,
in the course of nature, have been homoeopathically cured
by other diseases presenting similar symptoms, were it
not necessary, as our object is to speak about something
determinate and indubitable, to confine our attention solely
to those (few) diseases which are invariably the same,
arise from a fixed miasm, and hence merit a distinct name.
Among these the smallpox, so dreaded on account of
the great number of its serious symptoms, occupies a
prominent position, and it has removed and cured a
number of maladies with similar symptoms.
How frequently does smallpox produce violent ophthal-
mia, sometimes even causing blindness! And see! by its
inoculation Dezoteux2 cured a chronic ophthalmia per-
manently, and Leroys another.
.
An amaurosis of two years' duration, consequent on
suppressed scald-head, was perfectly cured by it, accord-
ing to Klein.4
1 Just as the image of a lamp's flame is rapidly overpowered and effaced
from our retina by the stronger sunbeam impinging on the eye.
2 Traité de l'inoculation, p. 189.
3 Heilkunde für Mütter, p. 384.
4 Interpres clinicus, p. 293.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
73
How often does smallpox cause deafness and dyspnoea!
And both these chronic diseases it removed on reaching
its acme, as J. Fr. Closs¹ observed.
2
.
Swelling of the testicle, even of a very severe cha-
racter, is a frequent symptom of smallpox, and on this
account it was enabled, as Klein observed, to cure, by
virtue of similarity, a large hard swelling of the left
testicle, consequent on a bruise. And another observers
saw a similar swelling of the testicle cured by it.
Among the troublesome symptoms of smallpox is a dys-
enteric state of the bowels; and it subdued, as Fr. Wendt*
observed, a case of dysentery, as a similar morbific agent.
Smallpox coming on after vaccination, as well on account
of its greater strength as its great similarity, at once
removes entirely the cow-pox homœopathically, and does
not permit it to come to maturity; but, on the other hand,
the cow-pox when near maturity does, on account of its
great similarity, homoeopathically diminish very much
the supervening smallpox and make it much milder, as
Mühry and many others testify.
5
The inoculated cow-pox, whose lymph, besides the
protective matter, contains the contagion of a general
cutaneous eruption of another nature, consisting of
usually small, dry (rarely large, pustular) pimples, rest-
ing on a small red areola, frequently conjoined with
round red cutaneous spots and often accompanied by the
most violent itching, which rash appears in not a few
children several days before, more frequently, however,
after the red areola of the cow-pock, and goes off in a
few days, leaving behind small, red, hard spots on the
skin; the inoculated cow-pox, I say, after it has taken,
cures perfectly and permanently, in a homoeopathic
manner, by the similarity of this accessory miasm, ana-
1 Neue Heilart der Kinderpocken, Ulm, 1769, p. 68; and Specim., obs.
No. 18.
2 Op. cit.
3 Nov. Act. Nat. cur., vol. i, obs. 22.
• Nachricht von dem Krankeninstitut zu Erlangen, 1783.
5 Willan, Ueber die Kuhpockenimpfung, aus dem Engl., mit Zusätzen von
G. P. Mühry, Göttingen, 1808.
74
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
logous cutaneous eruptions of children, often of very
long standing and of a very troublesome character, as a
number of observers assert.
1
2
The cow-pox, a peculiar symptom of which is to cause
tumefaction of the arm, cured, after it broke out, a
swollen half-paralysed arm.³
The fever accompanying cow-pox, which occurs at the
time of the production of the red areola, cured homoeo-
pathically intermittent fever in two individuals, as the
younger Hardege reports, confirming what J. Hunter 5
had already observed, that two fevers (similar diseases)
cannot co-exist in the same body.
4
6
7
The measles bears a strong resemblance in the character
of its fever and cough to the whooping-cough, and hence
it was that Bosquillon noticed, in an epidemic where both
these affections prevailed, that many children who then
took measles remained free from whooping-cough during
that epidemic. They would all have been protected from,
and rendered incapable of being infected by, the whooping-
1 Especially Clavier, Hurel and Desormeaux, in the Bulletin des sciences
médicales, publié par les membres du comité central de la Soc. de Médecine
du Département de l'Eure, 1808; also in the Journal de médecine continué,
vol. xv, p. 206.
2 Balhorn, in Hufeland's Journal, 10, ii.
3 Stevenson, in Duncan's Annals of Medicine, lustr. 2, vol. i, pt. 2, No. 9.
4 In Hufeland's Journal, xxiii.
5 On the Venereal Disease, p. 4.
6 The examples adduced in this place, in the former editions of the Organon
except the last, of chronic maladies cured by the itch,(«) can, according to the
discoveries and explanations I have given in the first part of my book on
Chronic Diseases, be looked upon as only in a certain degree homœopathic
cures. The great maladies which thereby disappeared (suffocative asthma of
many years' standing and pulmonary phthisis) were themselves originally of
psoric origin, widely spread, life-threatening symptoms of an ancient psora
that had been fully developed in the interior of the system, which was again
transformed into the simple form of the primitive itch disease by the cuta-
neous eruption resulting from the new infection (as always happens in such
cases), whereby the old malady and the dangerous symptoms were made to
disappear. Such a transformation into the primitive form is therefore only
to be considered as a homoeopathic healer of these extensive symptoms of
highly developed ancient psora, in so far as the new infection puts the patient
in a much more favorable condition to be cured of the whole psora by anti-
psoric medicines.
7 Cullen's Elements of Practical Medicine, pt. 2, i, 3, ch. vii.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
75
.
cough in that and all subsequent epidemics, by the
measles, if the whooping-cough were not a disease that
has only a partial similarity to the measles, that is to say,
if it had also a cutaneous eruption similar to what the
latter possesses. As it is, however, the measles can but pre-
serve a large number from whooping-cough homoeopathi-
cally, and that only in the epidemic prevailing at the time.
If, however, the measles come in contact with a disease
resembling it in its chief symptom, the eruption, it can
indisputably remove, and effect a homœopathic cure of
the latter. Thus a chronic herpetic eruption was en-
tirely and permanently (homoeopathically) cured by
the breaking out of the measles, as Kortum 2 observed.
An excessively burning miliary rash on the face, neck,
and arms, that had lasted six years, and was aggravated
by every change of weather, on the invasion of measles
assumed the form of a swelling of the surface of the skin ;
after the measles had run its course the exanthem was
cured, and returned no more.3
1
§ 47.(a)
Nothing could teach the physician in a plainer and
more convincing manner than the above, what kind of
artificial morbific agent (medicine) he ought to choose in
order to cure in a sure, rapid and permanent manner,
conformably with the process that takes place in nature.
§ 48.
Neither in the course of nature, as we see from all the
above examples, nor by the physician's art, can an exist-
ing affection or malady in any one instance be removed
by a dissimilar morbific agent, be it ever so strong,
but solely by one that is similar in symptoms and is some-
what stronger, according to eternal, irrevocable laws of
nature, which have not hitherto been recognised.
'Or at least that symptom was removed.
2 In Hufeland's Journal, xx, 3, p. 50.
3 Rau, Ueber d. Werth des hom. Heilv., Heidelb., 1824, p. 85.
76
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 49.
We should have been able to meet with many more
real, natural homoeopathic cures of this kind if, on the
one hand, the attention of observers had been more
directed to them, and, on the other hand, if nature had
not been so deficient in helpful homoeopathic diseases.
§ 50.
2
Mighty Nature herself has, as we see, at her command,
as instruments for effecting homœopathic cures, little
besides the miasmatic diseases of constant character, (the
itch,) measles and smallpox,¹ morbific agents which, as
remedies, are either more dangerous to life and more
to be dreaded than the disease they are to cure, or of
such a kind (like the itch) that, after they have effected
the cure, they themselves require curing, in order to be
eradicated in their turn-both circumstances that make
their employment, as homoeopathic remedies, difficult,
uncertain and dangerous. And how few diseases are
there to which man is subject that find their similar
remedy in smallpox, measles or itch! Hence, in the
course of nature, very few maladies can be cured by these
uncertain and hazardous homoeopathic remedies, and
the cure by their instrumentality is also attended
with danger and much difficulty, for this reason that the
doses of these morbific powers cannot be diminished
according to circumstances, as doses of medicine can;
but the patient afflicted with an analogous malady of
long standing must be subjected to the entire dangerous
and tedious disease, to the entire disease of smallpox,
measles (or itch), which in its turn has to be cured.
And yet, as is seen, we can point to some striking homœo-
pathic cures effected by this lucky concurrence, all so
many incontrovertible proofs of the great, the sole thera-
peutic law of nature that obtains in them: Cure by sym-
ptom similarity!
1 And the exanthematous contagious principle present in the cow-pox
lymph.
"Namely, smallpox and measles.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
77
§ 51.
This therapeutic law is rendered obvious to all intel-
ligent minds by these instances, and they are amply suffi-
cient for this end. But, on the other hand, see what advan-
tages man has over crude Nature in her happy-go-lucky
operations. How many thousands more of homoeopathic
morbific agents has not man at his disposal for the relief of
his suffering fellow-creatures in the medicinal substances
universally distributed throughout creation! In them he
has producers of disease of all possible varieties of action,
for all the innumerable, for all conceivable and incon-
ceivable natural diseases, to which they can render
homoeopathic aid-morbific agents (medicinal substances),
whose power, when their remedial employment is com-
pleted, being overcome by the vital force, disappears
spontaneously without requiring a second course of
treatment for its extirpation, like the itch-artificial
morbific agents, which the physician can attenuate, sub-
divide and potentise almost to an infinite extent, and
the dose of which he can diminish to such a degree that
they shall remain only slightly stronger than the similar
natural disease they are employed to cure; so that, in
this incomparable method of cure, there is no necessity
for any violent attack upon the organism for the eradi-
cation of even an inveterate disease of old standing; the
cure by this method takes place by only a gentle, im-
perceptible and yet often rapid transition from the tor-
menting natural disease to the desired state of permanent
health.
§ 52.
Surely no intelligent physician, after these examples as
clear as daylight, can still go on in the old ordinary system
of medicine, attacking the body, as has hitherto been done,
in its least diseased parts with (allopathic) medicines that
have no direct pathological (homoeopathic) relation to
the disease to be cured, with purgatives, counter-irritants,
78
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
derivatives, &c.,¹ and thus at a sacrifice of the patient's
strength, inducing a morbid state quite heterogeneous and
dissimilar to the original one, to the ruin of his constitu-
tion, by large doses of mixtures of medicines generally
of unknown qualities, the employment of which can have
no other result, as is demonstrated by the eternal laws
of nature in the above and all other cases in the
world in which a dissimilar disease is added to the
other in the human organism, for a cure is never thereby
effected in diseases, but an aggravation is the invariable
consequence, therefore it can have no other result than
that either (because, according to the process of nature
described in I, the older disease in the body repels the
dissimilar one wherewith the patient is assailed) the
natural disease remains as it was, under mild allopathic
treatment, be it ever so long continued, the patient being
thereby weakened; or (because, according to the process
of nature described in II, the new and stronger disease
merely obscures and suspends for a short time the
original weaker dissimilar one), by the violent attack on
the body with strong allopathic drugs, the original
disease seems to yield for a time, to return in at least
all its former strength; or (because, according to the
process of nature described in III, two dissimilar dis-
eases, when both are of a chronic character and of equal
strength, take up a position beside one another in the
organism and complicate each other) in those cases in
which the physician employs for a long time morbific
agents opposite and dissimilar to the natural chronic
disease and allopathic medicines in large doses, such
allopathic treatment, without ever being able to remove
and to cure the original (dissimilar) chronic disease, only
develops new artificial diseases beside it; and, as daily
experience shows, only renders the patient much worse
and more incurable than before.(a)
1 Vide supra in the Introduction: A Review of the Therapeutics, &c., and
my book, Die Allöopathie, ein Wort der Warnung für Kranke jeder Art,
Leipzig, bei Baumgärtner [translated in Hahnemann's Lesser Writings].
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
79
§ 53. (a)
True, mild cures take place, as we see, only in a
homoeopathic way-a way which, as we have also shown
above (§§ 7-25) in a different manner, by experience.
and deductions, is also the true and the only one whereby
diseases may be most surely, rapidly and permanently
extinguished by art; for this mode of cure is founded on
an eternal, infallible law of nature.
§ 54.(a)
This, the homoeopathic way, must, moreover, as observed
above (§§ 43-49) be the only proper one, because, of the
three possible modes of employing medicines in diseases,
it is the only direct way to a mild, sure, permanent cure
without doing injury in another direction, and without
weakening the patient. The pure homoeopathic mode of
cure is the only proper way, the only direct way, the
only way possible to human skill, as certainly as only one
straight line can be drawn betwixt two given points.
$ 55.
The second mode of employing medicines in diseases,
the allopathic or heteropathic, which, without any patho-
logical relation to what is actually diseased in the body,
attacks the parts most exempt from the disease, in order
to draw away the disease through them and thus to
expel it, as is imagined, has hitherto been the most
general method. I have treated of it above in the
Introduction,¹ and shall not dwell longer on it.
$ 56.
The third and only remaining method of employing
2
1 Review of the Therapeutics, &c.
2 A fourth mode of employing medicines in diseases has been attempted to
be created by means of Isopathy, as it is called-that is to say, a method of
curing a given disease by the same contagious principle that produces it.
But even granting this could be done, which would certainly be a most
valuable discovery, yet, after all, seeing that the virus is given to the
patient highly potentised, and thereby, consequently, to a certain degree in
80
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
medicines in diseases, which, besides the other two just
alluded to, is the only other possible one, is the antipathic
(enantiopathic) or palliative method, wherewith the
physician could hitherto appear to be most useful, and
hoped most certainly to gain his patient's confidence by
deluding him with momentary amelioration. But I shall
now proceed to show how inefficacious and how injurious
this third and sole remaining way was, in diseases of a
not very rapid course.(a) It is certainly the only one of
the modes of treatment adopted by the allopaths that
had any manifest relation to a portion of the sufferings
caused by the natural disease; but what kind of rela-
tion? Of a truth the very one (the exact contrary of
the right one) that ought most to be avoided if we would
not delude and make a mockery of the patient affected
with a chronic disease.
§ 57.
In order to carry into practice this antipathic method,
the ordinary physician gives, for a single troublesome sym-
ptom from among the many other symptoms of the disease
which he passes by unheeded, a medicine concerning which
it is known that it produces the exact opposite of the morbid
symptom sought to be subdued, from which, agreeably to
the fifteen-centuries-old traditional rule of the antiquated
medical school (contraria contrariis) he can expect the
speediest (palliative) relief. He gives large doses of
opium for pains of all sorts, because this drug soon
benumbs the sensibility, and administers the same remedy
for diarrhoeas, because it speedily puts a stop to the
peristaltic motion of the intestinal canal and makes it in-
sensible; and also for sleeplessness, because opium rapidly
produces a stupefied, comatose sleep; he gives purgatives
when the patient has suffered long from constipation and
costiveness; he causes the burnt hand to be plunged into
cold water, which, from its low degree of temperature,
seems instantaneously to remove the burning pain, as if
an altered condition, the cure is effected only by opposing a simillimum to a
simillimum,(«)
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
81
by magic; he puts the patient who complains of chilli-
ness and deficiency of vital heat into warm baths, which
warm him immediately; he makes him who is suffering
from prolonged debility drink wine, whereby he is instantly
enlivened and refreshed; and in like manner he employs
other opposite (antipathic) remedial means, but he has
very few besides those just mentioned, as it is only of
very few substances that some peculiar (primary) action
is known to the ordinary medical school.
§ 58.
If, in estimating the value of this mode of employing
medicines, we should even pass over the circumstance
that it is an extremely faulty symptomatic treatment (v.
note to § 7), wherein the practitioner devotes his attention
in a merely one-sided manner to a single symptom, con-
sequently to only a small part of the whole, whereby
relief for the totality of the disease, which is what the
patient desires, cannot evidently be expected,-we must,
on the other hand, demand of experience if, in one
single case where such antipathic employment of medi-
cine was made use of in a chronic or persisting affec-
tion, after the transient amelioration there did not ensue
an increased aggravation of the symptom which was
subdued at first in a palliative manner, an aggravation,
indeed, of the whole disease? And every attentive
observer will agree that, after such short antipathic
amelioration, aggravation follows in every case without
exception, although the ordinary physician is in the habit
of giving his patient another explanation of this subse-
quent aggravation, and ascribes it to malignancy of the
original disease, now for the first time showing itself, or
to the occurrence of quite a new disease.¹
.
1 Little as physicians have hitherto been in the habit of observing accu-
rately, the aggravation that so certainly follows such palliative treatment
could not altogether escape their notice. A striking example of this is to be
found in J. H. Schulze's Diss. qua corporis humani momentanearum altera-
tionum specimina quædam expenduntur, Halæ, 1741, § 28. Willis bears
testimony to something similar (Pharm. rat., § 7, cap. i, p. 298: “Opiata
dolores atrocissimos plerumque sedant atque indolentiam-procurant, eamque
6
82
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 59.
Important symptoms of persistent diseases have never
yet been treated with such palliative, antagonistic re-
medies, without the opposite state, a relapse-indeed, a
palpable aggravation of the malady-occurring a few
hours afterwards. For a persistent tendency to sleepi-
ness during the day the physician prescribed coffee, whose
primary action is to enliven; and when it had exhausted
its action the day-somnolence increased;-for frequent
waking at night he gave in the evening, without heeding
the other symptoms of the disease, opium, which by
virtue of its primary action produced the same night
(stupefied, dull) sleep, but the subsequent nights were
still more sleepless than before ;-to chronic diarrhoeas
he opposed, without regarding the other morbid signs,
the same opium, whose primary action is to constipate
the bowels, and after a transient stoppage of the diarrhoea
it subsequently became all the worse ;-violent and
frequently recurring pains of all kinds he could
suppress with opium for but a short time; they then
always returned in greater, often intolerable severity, or
some much worse affection came in their stead. For
nocturnal cough of long standing the ordinary physician
knew no better than to administer opium, whose primary
action is to suppress every irritation; the cough would
then perhaps cease the first night, but during the subse-
quent nights it would be still more severe, and if it were
again and again suppressed by this palliative in increased.
doses, fever and nocturnal perspiration were added to the
disease ;-weakness of the bladder, with consequent
retention of urine, was sought to be conquered by the
.
-aliquamdiu et pro stato quodam tempore continuant, quo spatio elapso
dolores mox recrudescunt et brevi ad solitam ferociam augentur." And also
at page 295: "Exactis opii viribus illico redeunt tormina, nec atrocitatem
suam remittunt, nisi dum ab eodem pharmaco rursus incantuntur." In like
manner J. Hunter (On the Venereal Disease, p. 13) says that wine and
cordials given to the weak increase the action without giving real strength,
and the powers of the body are afterwards sunk proportionally as they have
been raised, by which nothing can be gained, but a great deal may be lost.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
83
antipathic power of cantharides to stimulate the urinary
passages, whereby evacuation of the urine was certainly
at first effected, but thereafter the bladder becomes less
capable of stimulation and less able to contract, and
paralysis of the bladder is imminent ;—with large doses
of purgative drugs and laxative salts, which excite the
bowels to frequent evacuation, it was sought to remove a
chronic tendency to constipation, but in the secondary
action the bowels became still more confined;-the
ordinary physician seeks to remove chronic debility by
the administration of wine, which, however, stimulates
only in its primary action, and hence the forces sink all
the lower in the secondary action ;-by bitter substances
and heating condiments he tries to strengthen and warm
the chronically weak and cold stomach, but in the secon-
dary action of these palliatives, which are stimulating in
their primary action only, the stomach becomes yet more
inactive ;-long-standing deficiency of vital heat and
chilly disposition ought surely to yield to prescriptions
of warm baths, but still more weak, cold, and chilly do
the patients subsequently become ;-severely burnt parts
feel instantaneous alleviation from the application of cold
water, but the burning pain afterwards increases to an
incredible degree, and the inflammation spreads and rises
to a still greater height;¹-by means of the sternutatory
remedies that provoke a secretion of mucus, coryza with
stoppage of the nose of long standing is sought to be
removed, but it escapes observation that the disease is
aggravated all the more by these antagonistic remedies
(in their secondary action), and the nose becomes still
more stopped ;-by electricity and galvanism, which in
their primary action greatly stimulate muscular action,
chronically weak and almost paralytic limbs were soon
excited to more active movements, but the consequence
(the secondary action) was complete deadening of all
muscular irritability and complete paralysis;—by vene-
sections it was attempted to remove chronic determina-
tion of blood to the head, but they were always followed
1 Vide Introduction, p. 43.
84
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
by greater congestion ;-ordinary medical practitioners
know nothing better with which to treat the paralytic
torpor of the corporeal and mental organs, conjoined
with unconsciousness, which prevails in many kinds of
typhus, than with large doses of valerian, because this
is one of the most powerful medicinal agents for causing
animation and increasing the motor faculty; in their
ignorance, however, they knew not that this action is only
a primary action, and that the organism, after that is
passed, most certainly falls back, in the secondary (anta-
gonistic) action, into still greater stupor and immobility,
that is to say, into paralysis of the mental and corporeal
organs (and death); they did not see, that the very
diseases they supplied most plentifully with valerian,
which is in such cases an oppositely acting, antipathic
remedy, most infallibly terminated fatally. The old
school physician rejoices¹ that he is able to reduce for
several hours the velocity of the small rapid pulse in
cachectic patients with the very first dose of uncombined
purple foxglove (which in its primary action makes the
pulse slower); its rapidity, however, soon returns; re-
peated, and now increased doses effect an ever smaller
diminution of its rapidity, and at length none at all-
indeed-in the secondary action the pulse becomes
uncountable; sleep, appetite and strength depart, and a
speedy death is invariably the result, or else insanity
ensues. How often, in one word, the disease is aggra-
vated, or something even worse is effected by the secondary
action of such antagonistic (antipathic) remedies, the old
school with its false theories does not perceive, but ex-
perience teaches it in a terrible manner.
.
§ 60.
.
If these ill effects are produced, as may very naturally
be expected from the antipathic employment of medicines,
the ordinary physician imagines he can get over the dif-
ficulty by giving, at each renewed aggravation, a stronger
dose of the remedy, whereby an equally transient sup-
¹ Vide Hufeland, in his pamphlet, Die Homöopathie, p. 20.(«)
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
85
pression is effected; and as there then is a still greater
necessity for giving ever-increasing quantities of the
palliative, there ensues either another more serious
disease or frequently even danger to life and death itself,
but never a cure of a disease of considerable or of long
standing.
§ 61.
Had physicians been capable of reflecting on the sad
results of the antagonistic employment of medicines, they
had long since discovered the grand truth, THAT THE TRUE
RADICAL HEALING ART MUST BE FOUND IN THE EXACT OPPO-
SITE OF SUCH AN ANTIPATHIC TREATMENT OF THE SYMPTOMS
.
OF DISEASE; they would have become convinced, that as
a medicinal action antagonistic to the symptoms of the
disease (an antipathically employed medicine) is followed
by only transient relief, and after that is passed, by
invariable aggravation, the converse of that procedure,
the homœopathic employment of medicines according to
similarity of symptoms, must effect a permanent and
perfect cure, if at the same time the opposite of their
large doses, the most minute doses, are exhibited. But
neither the obvious aggravation that ensued from their
antipathic treatment, nor the fact that no physician ever
effected a permanent cure of diseases of considerable or
of long standing unless some homoeopathic medicinal
agent was accidentally a chief ingredient in his prescrip-
tion, nor yet the circumstance that all the rapid and
perfect cures that nature ever performed (§ 46), were
always effected by the supervention upon the old disease
of one of a similar character, ever taught them, during
such a long series of centuries, this truth, the know-
ledge of which can alone conduce to the benefit of the sick.
§ 62.
But on what this pernicious result of the palliative, an-
tipathic treatment and the efficacy of the reverse, the
homœopathic treatment, depend, is explained by the fol-
lowing facts, deduced from manifold observations, which
86
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
no one before me perceived, though they are so very
palpable and so very evident, and are of such infinite
importance to the healing art.
§ 63.
Every agent that acts upon the vitality, every medi-
cine, deranges more or less the vital force, and causes
a certain alteration in the health of the individual for a
longer or a shorter period. This is termed primary
action. Although a product of the medicinal and vital
powers conjointly, it is principally due to the former
power. To its action our vital force endeavours to oppose
its own energy.
This resistent action is a property, is
indeed an automatic action of our life-preserving power,
which goes by the name of secondary action or counter-
action.
$ 64.
During the primary action of the artificial morbific
agents (medicines) on our healthy body, our vital force
seems to conduct itself merely in a passive (receptive)
manner, and appears, so to say, compelled to permit the
impressions of the artificial power acting from without to
take place in it and thereby alter its state of health; it
then, however, appears to rouse itself again, as it were,
and to develop (4) the exact opposite condition of health
(counteraction, secondary action) to this effect (primary
action) produced upon it, if there be such an opposite, and
that in as great a degree as was the effect (primary action)
of the artificial morbific or medicinal agent on it, and
proportionate to its own energy;—or (B) if there be not
in nature a state exactly the opposite of the primary
action, it appears to endeavour to indifferentiate itself,
that is, to make its superior power available in the ex-
tinction of the change wrought in it from without (by
the medicine), in the place of which it substitutes its
normal state (secondary action, curative action).
*
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
87
§ 65.
Examples of (A) are familiar to all. A hand bathed
in hot water is at first much warmer than the other hand
that has not been so treated (primary action); but when
it is withdrawn from the hot water and again thoroughly
dried, it becomes in a short time cold, and at length
much colder than the other (secondary action). A
person heated by violent exercise (primary action) is
afterwards affected with chilliness and shivering (secon-
dary action). To one who was yesterday heated by
drinking much wine (primary action), to-day every
breath of air feels too cold (counteraction of the organ-
ism, secondary action). An arm that has been kept long
in very cold water is at first much paler and colder
(primary action) than the other; but removed from the
cold water and dried, it subsequently becomes not only
warmer than the other, but even hot, red and inflamed
(secondary action, reaction of the vital force). Excessive
vivacity follows the use of strong coffee (primary action),
but sluggishness and drowsiness remain for a long time.
afterwards (reaction, secondary action), if this be not
always again removed for a short time by imbibing fresh
supplies of coffee (palliative). After the profound stupe-
fied sleep caused by opium (primary action), the follow-
ing night will be all the more sleepless (reaction, secon-
dary action). After the constipation produced by opium
(primary action), diarrhoea ensues (secondary action);
and after purgation with medicines that irritate the
bowels, constipation of several days' duration ensues
(secondary action). And in like manner it always
happens, after the primary action of a medicine that pro-
duces in large doses a great change in the health of a
healthy person, that its exact opposite, when, as has been
observed, there is actually such a thing, is produced in
the secondary action by our vital force.
$ 66.
An obvious antagonistic secondary action, however, is,
as may readily be conceived, not to be noticed from the
88
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
action of quite minute homoeopathic doses of the derang-
ing agents on the healthy body. A small dose of every
one of them certainly produces a primary action that is
perceptible to a sufficiently attentive observer; but the
living organism employs against it only so much reaction
(secondary action) as is necessary for the restoration of
the normal condition.
§ 67.
These incontrovertible truths, which spontaneously offer
themselves to our notice in nature and experience, explain
to us the beneficial action that takes place under homœo-
pathic treatment; whilst, on the other hand, they demon-
strate the perversity of the antipathic and palliative treat-
ment of diseases with antagonistically acting medicines.¹
1 ¹ Only in the most urgent cases, where danger to life and imminent death
allow no time for the action of a homœopathic remedy—not hours, sometimes
not even quarter-hours, and scarcely minutes-in sudden accidents occurring
to previously healthy individuals—for example, in asphyxia and suspended
animation from lightning, from suffocation, freezing, drowning, &c.—is it
admissible and judicious, at all events as a preliminary measure, to stimulate
the irritability and sensibility (the physical life) with a palliative, as, for
instance, with gentle electrical shocks, with clysters of strong coffee, with a
stimulating odour, gradual application of heat, &c. When this stimulation
is effected, the play of the vital organs again goes on in its former healthy
manner, for there is here no disease* to be removed, but merely an obstruc-
tion and suppression of the healthy vital force. To this category belong
various antidotes to sudden poisonings: alkalies for mineral acids, hepar
sulphuris for metallic poisons, coffee and camphor (and ipecacuanha) for
poisoning by opium, &c.
It does not follow that a homœopathic medicine has been ill selected for a
case of disease because some of the medicinal symptoms are only antipathic
to some of the less important and minor symptoms of the disease; if only the
others, the stronger, well-marked (characteristic), and peculiar symptoms of
the disease are covered and matched by the same medicine with similarity of
* And yet the new sect that mixes the two systems appeals (though in
vain) to this observation, in order that they may have an excuse for encoun-
tering everywhere such exceptions to the general rule in diseases, and to
justify their convenient employment of allopathic palliatives, and of other
injurious allopathic trash besides, solely for the sake of sparing themselves
the trouble of seeking for the suitable homoeopathic remedy for each case of
disease-I might almost say for the sake of sparing themselves the trouble of
being homœopathic physicians, and yet wishing to appear as such. But their
performances are on a par with the system they pursue; they are nothing to
boast of.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
89
§ 68.
In homœopathic cures they show us that from the
uncommonly small doses of medicine (§§ 275-287) re-
quired in this method of treatment, which are just
sufficient, by the similarity of their symptoms, to over-
power and remove the similar natural disease, there
certainly remains, after the destruction of the latter, at
first a certain amount of medicinal disease alone in the
organism, but, on account of the extraordinary minuteness
of the dose, it is so transient, so slight, and disappears so
rapidly of its own accord, that the vital force has no need
to employ, against this small artificial derangement of its
health, any more considerable reaction than will suffice
to elevate its present state of health up to the healthy
point—that is, than will suffice to effect complete recovery,
for which, after the extinction of the previous morbid
derangement, but little effort is required (§ 64, B).
§ 69.
In the antipathic (palliative) mode of treatment, how-
ever, precisely the reverse of this takes place. The
medicinal symptom which the physician opposes to the
disease symptom (for example, the insensibility and
stupefaction caused by opium in its primary action to
acute pain) is certainly not alien, not allopathic to the
latter; there is a manifest relation of the medicinal sym-
ptom to the disease symptom, but it is the reverse of what
should be; it is here intended that the annihilation of
the disease symptom shall be effected by an opposite
medicinal symptom, which is impossible. No doubt the
antipathically chosen medicine touches precisely the same
diseased point in the organism as the homoeopathic
medicine chosen on account of the similar affection it
produces; but the former covers the opposite symptom
of the disease only as an opposite, and makes it unob-
symptoms—that is to say, overpowered, destroyed and extinguished; the few
opposite symptoms also disappear of themselves after the expiry of the term
of action of the medicament, without retarding the cure in the least.
90
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
servable for a short time only, so that in the first period
of the action of the antagonistic palliative the vital force
perceives nothing disagreeable from either of the two
(neither from the disease symptom nor from the medicinal
symptom), as they seem both to have mutually removed
and dynamically neutralised one another as it were (for
example, the stupefying power of opium does this to the
pain). In the first minutes the vital force feels quite
well, and perceives neither the stupefaction of the opium
nor the pain of the disease. But as the antagonistic
medicinal symptom cannot (as in the homoeopathic treat-
ment) occupy the place of the morbid derangement
present in the organism as a similar, stronger (artificial)
disease, and cannot, therefore, like a homœopathic medi-
cine, affect the vital force with a similar artificial disease,
so as to be able to step into the place of the original
natural morbid derangement, the palliative medicine must,
as a thing totally differing from, and the opposite of the
disease derangement, leave the latter uneradicated; it
renders it, as before said, by a semblance of dynamic
neutralisation,¹ at first unfelt by the vital force, but, like
every medicinal disease, it is soon spontaneously extin-
guished, and not only leaves the disease behind, just as
it was, but compels the vital force (as it must, like all
palliatives, be given in large doses in order to effect the
apparent removal) to produce an opposite condition (§§ 63,
64) to this palliative medicine, the reverse of the medi-
cinal action, consequently the analogue of the still present,
1 In the living human being no permanent neutralisation of contrary or
antagonistic sensations can take place, as happens with substances of opposite
qualities in the chemical laboratory, where, for instance, sulphuric acid and
potash unite to form a perfectly different substance, a neutral salt, which is
now no longer either acid or alkali, and is not decomposed even by heat.
Such amalgamations and thorough combinations to form something per-
manently neutral and indifferent do not, as has been said, ever take place
with respect to dynamic impressions of an antagonistic nature in our sensific
apparatus. Only a semblance of neutralisation and mutual removal occurs in
such cases at first, but the antagonistic sensations do not permanently remove
one another. The tears of the mourner will be dried for but a short time by
a laughable play; the jokes are, however, soon forgotten, and his tears then
flow still more abundantly than before.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
91
undestroyed, natural morbid derangement, which is ne-
cessarily strengthened and increased¹ by this addition
(reaction against the palliative) produced by the vital
force. The disease symptom (this single part of the
disease) consequently becomes worse after the term of the
action of the palliative has expired; worse in proportion
to the magnitude of the dose of the palliative. Accord-
ingly (to keep to the same example) the larger the dose
of opium given to allay the pain, so much the more does
the pain increase beyond its original intensity as soon as
the opium has exhausted its action.2
§ 70.
From what has been already adduced we cannot fail
to draw the following inferences:
That everything of a really morbid character and
which ought to be cured that the physician can
discover in diseases, consists solely of the suffer-
ings of the patient, and the sensible alterations in
his health, in a word, solely of the totality of the
symptoms, by means of which the disease demands
the medicine requisite for its relief; whilst, on the
other hand, every internal cause attributed to it,
every occult quality or imaginary material mor-
bific principle, is nothing but an idle dream ;
1 Plain as this proposition is, it has been misunderstood, and in opposition
to it some have asserted "that the palliative in its secondary action, which
would then be similar to the disease present, must be capable of curing just
as well as a homeopathic medicine does by its primary action." But they
did not reflect that the secondary action is not a product of the medicine, but
invariably of the antagonistically acting vital force of the organism; that
therefore this secondary action resulting from the vital force on the employ-
ment of a palliative is a state similar to the symptoms of the disease which
the palliative left uneradicated, and which the reaction of the vital force
against the palliative consequently increased still more.
2 As when in a dark dungeon, where the prisoner could with difficulty
recognise objects close to him, alcohol is suddenly lighted, everything is
instantly illuminated in a most consolatory manner to the unhappy wretch ;
but when it is extinguished, the brighter the flame was previously, the blacker
is the night which now envelops him, and renders everything about him much
more difficult to be seen than before.
92
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
That this derangement of the state of health, which
we term disease, can only be converted into health
by another revolution effected in the state of health
by means of medicines, whose sole curative power,
consequently, can only consist in altering man's
state of health-that is to say, in a peculiar ex-
citation of morbid symptoms, and is learned with
most distinctness and purity by testing them on
the healthy body;
That, according to all experience, a natural disease
can never be cured by medicines that possess the
power of producing in the healthy individual an
alien morbid state (dissimilar morbid symptoms)
differing from that of the disease to be cured
(never, therefore, by an allopathic mode of treat-
ment), and that even in nature no cure ever takes
place in which an inherent disease is removed,
annihilated and cured by the addition of another
disease dissimilar to it, be the new one ever so
strong;
.
That, moreover, all experience proves that, by
means of medicines which have a tendency to
produce in the healthy individual an artificial
morbid symptom, antagonistic to the single sym-
ptom of disease sought to be cured, the cure of a
long-standing affection will never be effected, but
merely a very transient alleviation, always fol-
lowed by its aggravation; and that, in a word, this
antipathic and merely palliative treatment in long-
standing diseases of a serious character is abso-
lutely inefficacious;
That, however, the third and only other possible
mode of treatment (the homeopathic), in which
there is employed for the totality of the symptoms
of a natural disease a medicine capable of pro-
ducing the most similar symptoms possible in the
healthy individual, given in suitable dose, is the
only efficacious remedial method whereby dis-
eases, which are purely dynamic deranging irri-
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
93
tations of the vital force, are overpowered, and
being thus easily, perfectly, and permanently ex-
tinguished, must necessarily cease to exist-and
for this mode of procedure we have the example
of unfettered Nature herself, when to an old
disease there is added a new one similar to the
first, whereby the old one is rapidly and for ever
annihilated and cured.
§ 71.
As it is now no longer a matter of doubt that the
diseases of mankind consist merely of groups of certain
symptoms, and may be annihilated and transformed into
health by medicinal substances, but only by such as are
capable of artificially producing similar morbid symptoms
(and such is the process in all genuine cures), hence
the operation of curing is comprised in the three follow-
ing points:
-
I. How is the physician to ascertain what is
necessary to be known in order to cure the
disease?
II. How is he to gain a knowledge of the instru-
ments adapted for the cure of the natural disease,
the pathogenetic powers of the medicines ?
III. What is the most suitable method of employ-
ing these artificial morbific agents (medicines)
for the cure of natural diseases?
§ 72.(a)
With respect to the first point, the following will serve
as a general preliminary view. The diseases to which
man is liable are either rapid morbid processes of the
abnormally deranged vital force, which have a tendency
to finish their course more or less quickly, but always in
a moderate time-these are termed acute diseases;—or
they are diseases of such a character that, with small,
often imperceptible beginnings, dynamically derange the
living organism, each in its own peculiar manner, and
cause it gradually to deviate from the healthy condition,
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ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
in such a way that the automatic life energy, called vital
force, whose office is to preserve the health, only opposes
to them at the commencement and during their progress
imperfect, unsuitable, useless resistance, but is unable of
itself to extinguish them, but must helplessly suffer (them
to spread and) itself to be ever more and more abnor-
mally deranged, until at length the organism is destroyed;
these are termed chronic diseases. They are caused by
infection with a chronic miasm.
§ 73.
As regards acute diseases, they are either of such a
kind as attack human beings individually, the exciting
cause being injurious influences to which they were parti-
cularly exposed. Excesses in food, or an insufficient
supply of it, severe physical impressions, chills, over-
heatings, dissipation, strains, &c., or psychical irritations,
mental emotions, and the like, are exciting causes of such
acute febrile affections; in reality, however, they are gene-
rally only a transient explosion of latent psora, which
spontaneously returns to its dormant state if the acute
diseases were not of too violent a character and were
soon quelled. Or they are of such a kind as attack
several persons at the same time, here and there (spora-
dically), by means of meteoric or telluric influences and
injurious agents, the susceptibility for being morbidly
affected by which is possessed by only a few persons at
Allied to these are those diseases in which
many persons are attacked with very similar sufferings.
from the same cause (epidemically); these diseases gene-
rally become infectious (contagious) when they prevail
among thickly congregated masses of human beings.
Thence arise fevers,¹ in each instance of a peculiar
one time.
1 The homœopathic physician, who does not entertain the foregone conclu-
sions devised by the ordinary school (who have fixed upon a few names of
such fevers, besides which mighty nature dare not produce any others, so as
to admit of their treating these diseases according to some fixed method),
does not acknowledge the names gaol fever, bilious fever, typhus fever, putrid
fever, nervous fever or mucous fever, but treats them each according to their
several peculiarities.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
95
nature, and, because the cases of disease have an identical
origin, they set up in all those they affect an identical
morbid process, which when left to itself terminates in a
moderate period of time in death or recovery. The
calamities of war, inundations and famine are not infre-
quently their exciting causes and producers-sometimes
they are peculiar acute miasms which recur in the same
manner (hence known by some traditional name), which
either attack persons but once in a lifetime, as the small-
pox, measles, whooping-cough, the ancient smooth, bright
red scarlet fever¹ of Sydenham, the mumps, &c., or such as
recur frequently in pretty much the same manner, the
plague of the Levant, the yellow fever of the sea-coast,
the Asiatic cholera, &c.
§ 74. (a)
Among chronic diseases we must still, alas! reckon
those so commonly met with, artificially produced in
allopathic treatment by the prolonged use of violent
heroic medicines in large and increasing doses, by the
abuse of calomel, corrosive sublimate, mercurial oint-
ment, nitrate of silver, iodine and its ointments, opium,
valerian, cinchona bark and quinine, foxglove, prussic
acid, sulphur and sulphuric acid, perennial purgatives,
venesections, leeches, issues, setons, &c., whereby the
vital force is sometimes weakened to an unmerciful extent,
sometimes, if it do not succumb, gradually abnormally
deranged (by each substance in a peculiar manner) in
such a way that, in order to maintain life against these
inimical and destructive attacks, it must produce a revo-
lution in the organism, and either deprive some part of
.
1 Subsequently to the year 1801 a kind of purpura miliaris (roodvonk),
which came from the West, was by physicians confounded with the scarlet
fever, notwithstanding that they exhibited totally different symptoms, that
the latter found its prophylactic and curative remedy in belladonna, the
former in aconite, and that the former was generally merely sporadic, while
the latter was invariably epidemic. Of late years it seems as if the two
occasionally joined to form an eruptive fever of a peculiar kind, for which
neither the one nor yet the other remedy, alone, will be found to be exactly
homœopathic.
96
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
its irritability or sensibility, or exalt these to an excessive
degree, cause dilatation or contraction, relaxation or indu-
ration or even total destruction of certain parts, and
develop faulty organic alterations here and there in the
interior or the exterior,¹ (cripple the body internally or
externally) in order to preserve the organism from com-
plete destruction of life by the ever-renewed, hostile
assaults of such destructive forces.
§ 75.
These inroads on human health effected by the allo-
pathic non-healing art (more particularly in recent times)
are of all chronic diseases the most deplorable, the most
incurable; and I regret to add that it is apparently im-
possible to discover or to hit upon any remedies for
their cure when they have reached any considerable
height.
§ 76.
Only for natural diseases has the beneficent Deity
granted us, in Homœopathy, the means of affording
relief; but those devastations and maimings of the human
organism exteriorly and interiorly, effected by years,
frequently, of the unsparing exercise of a false art, with
its hurtful drugs and treatment, must be remedied by the
vital force itself (appropriate aid being given for the
eradication of any chronic miasm that may happen to be
lurking in the background), if it have not already been
too much weakened by such mischievous acts, and can
devote several years to this huge operation undisturbed.
A human healing art, for the restoration to the normal
state of those innumerable abnormal conditions so often
¹ If the patient at length succumbs, the practiser of such a treatment is in
the habit of pointing out to the sorrowing relatives, at the post-mortem
examination, these internal organic disfigurements, which are due to his
pseudo-art, but which he artfully maintains to be the original incurable
disease (see my book, Die Allöopathie, ein Wort der Warnung an Kranke
jeder Art, Leipzig, bei Baumgärtner [translated in Lesser Writings]). Those
deceitful records, the illustrated works on pathological anatomy, exhibit the
products of such lamentable bungling.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
97
produced by the allopathic non-healing art, there is not
and cannot be.
§ 77.
Those diseases are inappropriately named chronic,
which persons incur who expose themselves continually
to avoidable noxious influences, who are in the habit of
indulging in injurious liquors or aliments, are addicted to
dissipation of many kinds which undermine the health,
who undergo prolonged abstinence from things that are
necessary for the support of life, who reside in unhealthy
localities, especially marshy districts, who are housed in
cellars or other confined dwellings, who are deprived of
exercise or of open air, who ruin their health by over-
exertion of body or mind, who live in a constant state of
worry, &c.
These states of ill-health, which persons bring
upon themselves, disappear spontaneously, provided no
chronic miasm lurks in the body, under an improved mode
of living, and they cannot be called chronic diseases.
§ 78.
The true natural chronic diseases are those that arise
from a chronic miasm, which when left to themselves
and unchecked by the employment of those remedies that
are specific for them, always go on increasing and growing
worse, notwithstanding the best mental and corporeal
regimen, and torment the patient to the end of his life
with ever aggravated sufferings. These are the most
numerous and greatest scourges of the human race; for
the most robust constitution, the best regulated mode of
living and the most vigorous energy of the vital force
are insufficient for their eradication.
§ 79.
Hitherto syphilis alone has been to some extent known
as such a chronic miasmatic disease, which when uncured
ceases only with the termination of life. Sycosis (the
condylomatous disease), equally ineradicable by the vital
force without proper medicinal treatment, was not re-
7
98
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
cognised as a chronic miasmatic disease of a peculiar
character, which it nevertheless undoubtedly is, and
physicians imagined they had cured it when they had
destroyed the growths upon the skin, but the persisting
dyscrasia occasioned by it escaped their observation.
$ 80.
Incalculably greater and more important than the two
chronic miasms just named, however, is the chronic miasm
of psora, which, whilst those two reveal their specific
internal dyscrasia, the one by the venereal chancre, the
other by the cauliflower-like growths, does also, after
the completion of the internal infection of the whole
organism, announce by a peculiar cutaneous eruption,
sometimes consisting only of a few vesicles accompanied
by intolerable voluptuous tickling itching (and a peculiar
odour), the monstrous internal chronic miasm-the psora,
the only real fundamental cause and producer of all the
other numerous, I may say innumerable, forms of disease,¹
1 I spent twelve years in investigating the source of this incredibly large
number of chronic affections, in ascertaining and collecting certain proofs of
this great truth, which had remained unknown to all former or contemporary
observers, and in discovering at the same time the principal (antipsoric)
remedies, which collectively are nearly a match for this thousand-headed
monster of disease in all its different developments and forms. I have pub-
lished my observations on this subject in the book entitled The Chronic
Diseases (4 vols., Dresden, Arnold. [2nd edit., Düsseldorf, Schaub.]) Before
I had obtained this knowledge I could only teach how to treat the whole
number of chronic diseases as isolated, individual maladies, with those medi-
cinal substances whose pure effects had been tested on healthy persons up to
that period, so that every case of chronic disease was treated by my disciples
according to the group of symptoms it presented, just like an idiopathic
disease, and it was often so far cured that sick mankind rejoiced at the
extensive remedial treasures already amassed by the new healing art. How
much greater cause is there now for rejoicing that the desired goal has been
so much more nearly attained, inasmuch as the recently discovered and far
more specific homoeopathic remedies for chronic affections arising from
psora (properly termed antipsoric remedies) and the special instructions for
their preparation and employment have been published; and from among
them the true physician can now select for his curative agents those
whose medicinal symptoms correspond in the most similar (homœopathic)
manner to the chronic disease he has to cure; and thus, by the employment
of (antipsoric) medicines more suitable for this miasm, he is enabled to render
more essential service and almost invariably to effect perfect cures.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
99
which, under the names of nervous debility, hysteria,
hypochondriasis, mania, melancholia, imbecility, madness,
epilepsy and convulsions of all sorts, softening of the
bones (rachitis), scoliosis and cyphosis, caries, cancer,
fungus hæmatodes, neoplasms, gout, hæmorrhoids, jaun-
dice, cyanosis, dropsy, amenorrhoea, hæmorrhage from
the stomach, nose, lungs, bladder and womb, of asthma
and ulceration of the lungs, of impotence and barrenness,
of megrim, deafness, cataract, amaurosis, urinary calculus,
paralysis, defects of the senses and pains of thousands of
kinds, &c., figure in systematic works on pathology as
peculiar, independent diseases.
§ 81.
The fact that this extremely ancient infecting agent
has gradually passed, in some hundreds of generations,
through many millions of human organisms and has thus
attained an incredible development, renders it in some
measure conceivable how it can now display such innu-
merable morbid forms in the great family of mankind,
particularly when we consider what a number of circum-
stances¹ contribute to the production of these great varieties
of chronic diseases (secondary symptoms of psora), besides
the indescribable diversity of men in respect of their
congenital corporeal consitutions, so that it is no wonder
if such a variety of injurious agencies, acting from within
and from without and sometimes continually, on such a
variety of organisms permeated with the psoric miasm,
should produce an innumerable variety of defects, in-
juries, derangements and sufferings, which have hitherto
been treated of in the old pathological works,² under a
1 Some of these causes that exercise a modifying influence on the transfor-
mation of psora into chronic diseases manifestly depend sometimes on the
climate and the peculiar physical character of the place of abode, sometimes
on the very great varieties in the physical and mental training of youth,
both of which may have been neglected, delayed or carried to excess, or on
their abuse in the business or conditions of life, in the matter of diet and
regimen, passions, manners, habits and customs of various kinds.
2 How many improper, ambiguous names do not these works contain, under
each of which are included excessively different morbid conditions, which
JorM
100
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
number of special names, as diseases of an independent
character.
often resemble each another in one single symptom only, as ague, jaundice,
dropsy, consumption, leucorrhoea, hæmorrhoids, rheumatism, apoplexy, con-
vulsions, hysteria, hypochondriasis, melancholia, mania, quinsy, palsy, &c.,
which are represented as diseases of a fixed and unvarying character, and
are treated, on account of their name, according to a determinate plan! How
can the bestowal of such a name justify an identical medical treatment?
And if the treatment is not always to be the same, why make use of an
"Nihil sane in
identical name which postulates an identity of treatment?
artem medicam pestiferum magis unquam irrepsit malum, quam generalia
quædam nomina morbis imponere iisque aptare velle generalem quandam
medicinam," says Huxham, a man as clear-sighted as he was estimable on
account of his conscientiousness (Op. phys. med., tom. i.). And in like
manner Fritze laments (Annalen, i, p. 80) "that essentially different diseases
are designated by the same name. Even those epidemic diseases, which
undoubtedly may be propagated in every separate epidemic by a peculiar
contagious principle which remains unknown to us, are designated, in the
old school of medicine, by particular names, just as if they were well-known
fixed diseases that invariably recurred under the same form, as hospital fever,
gaol fever, camp fever, putrid fever, bilious fever, nervous fever, mucous fever,
although each epidemic of such roving fevers exhibits itself at every occur-
rence as another, a new disease, such as it has never before appeared in
exactly the same form, differing very much, in every instance, in its course,
as well as in many of its most striking symptoms and its whole appearance.
Each is so far dissimilar to all previous epidemics, whatever names they may
bear, that it would be a dereliction of all logical accuracy in our ideas of
things were we to give to these maladies, that differ so much among them-
selves, one of those names we meet with in pathological writings, and treat
them all medicinally in conformity with this misused name. The candid
Sydenham alone perceived this, when he (Obs. med., cap. ii, De morb. epid.)
insists upon the necessity of not considering any epidemic disease as having
occurred before and treating it in the same way as another, since all that
occur successively, be they ever so numerous, differ from one another: "Nihil
quicquam (opinor,) animum universæ qua patet medicinæ pomaria perlus-
trantem, tanta admiratione percellet, quam discolor illa et sui plane dissimilis
morborum Epidemicorum facies; non tam qua varias ejusdem anni tempes-
tates, quam qua discrepantes diversorum ab invicem annorum constitutiones
referunt, ab iisque dependent. Quæ tam aperta prædictorum morborum
diversitas tum propriis ac sibi peculiaribus symptomatis, tum etiam medendi
ratione, quam hi ab illis disparem prorsus sibi vendicant, satis illucescit. Ex
quibus constat morbus hosce, ut ut externa quadantenus specie, et sympto-
matis aliquot utrisque pariter supervenientibus, convenire paulo incautioribus
videantur, re tamen ipsa (si bene adverteris animum,) alienæ admodum esse
indolis, et distare ut æra lupinis." («)
From all this it is clear that these useless and misused names of diseases
ought to have no influence on the practice of the true physician, who knows
that he has to judge of and to cure diseases, not according to the similarity of
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
101
$ 82.
Although, by the discovery of that great source of
chronic diseases, as also by the discovery of the specific
homœopathic remedies for the psora, medicine has ad-
vanced some steps nearer to a knowledge of the nature
of the majority of diseases it has to cure, yet, for
settling the indication in each case of chronic (psoric)
disease he is called on to cure, the duty of a careful
apprehension of its ascertainable symptoms and character-
istics is as indispensable for the homoeopathic physician
as it was before that discovery, as no real cure of this or
of other diseases can take place without a strict particular
treatment (individualisation) of each case of disease-only
that in this investigation some difference is to be made when
the affection is an acute and rapidly developed disease,
and when it is a chronic one; seeing that, in acute disease,
the chief symptoms strike us and become evident to the
senses more quickly, and hence much less time is re-
quisite for tracing the picture of the disease and much
fewer questions are required to be asked,¹ as almost every-
thing is self-evident, than in a chronic disease which has
been gradually progressing for several years, in which the
symptoms are much more difficult to be ascertained.
the name of a single one of their symptoms, but according to the totality of
the signs of the individual state of each particular patient, whose affection it
is his duty carefully to investigate, but never to give a hypothetical guess
at it.
If, however, it is deemed necessary sometimes to make use of names of
diseases, in order, when talking about a patient to ordinary persons, to render
ourselves intelligible in few words, we ought only to employ them as collec-
tive names, and tell them, e.g. the patient has a kind of St. Vitus's dance, a
kind of dropsy, a kind of typhus, a kind of ague; but (in order to do away
once for all with the mistaken notions these names give rise to) we should never
say he has the St. Vitus's dance, the typhus, the dropsy, the ague, as there
are certainly no diseases of these and similar names of fixed, unvarying
character.
1 Hence the following directions for investigating the symptoms are only
partially applicable for acute diseases.
102
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 83. (a)
This individualising examination of a case of disease,
for which I shall only give in this place general direc-
tions, of which the practitioner will bear in mind only
what is applicable for each individual case, demands of
the physician nothing but freedom from prejudice and
sound senses, attention in observing and fidelity in trac-
ing the picture of the disease.
$ 84.
The patient details the history of his sufferings; those
about him tell what they have heard him complain of,
how he has behaved and what they have noticed in him;
the physician sees, hears, and remarks by his other
senses what there is of an altered or unusual character
about him. He writes down accurately all that the
patient and his friends have told him in the very expres-
sions used by them. Keeping silence himself he allows
them to say all they have to say, and refrains from inter-
rupting them¹ unless they wander off to other matters.
The physician advises them at the beginning of the exa-
mination to speak slowly, in order that he may take down
in writing the important parts of what the speakers say.
$ 85.
He begins a fresh line with every new circumstance
mentioned by the patient or his friends, so that the sym-
ptoms shall be all ranged separately one below the other.
He can thus add to any one, that may at first have been
related in too vague a manner, but subsequently more
explicitly detailed.
$ 86.
When the narrators have finished what they would say
of their own accord, the physician then reverts to each
particular symptom and elicits more precise information
1 Every interruption breaks the train of thought of the narrators, and all
they would have said at first does not again occur to them in precisely the
same manner after that.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
103
respecting it in the following manner: he reads over the
symptoms as they were related to him one by one, and
about each of them he inquires for further particulars:
e. g. at what period did this symptom occur? Was it
previous to taking the medicine he had hitherto been
using? Whilst taking the medicine? Or only some
days after leaving off the medicine? What kind of
pain, what sensation exactly, was it that occurred on this
spot?
Where was the precise spot? Did the pain
occur in fits and by itself, at various times? Or was it
continued, without intermission? How long did it last?
At what time of the day or night, and in what position
of the body was it worst, or ceased entirely?
What was
the exact nature of this or that event or circumstance
mentioned-described in plain words?
§ 87.
And thus the physician obtains more precise informa-
tion respecting each particular detail, but without ever
framing his questions so as to suggest the answer to the
patient,¹ so that he shall only have to answer yes or
no; else he will be misled to answer in the affirmative
or negative something untrue, half true, or not strictly
correct, either from indolence or in order to please his
interrogator, from which a false picture of the disease
and an unsuitable mode of treatment must result.
§ 88.
If in these voluntary details nothing has been men-
tioned respecting several parts or functions of the body
or his mental state, the physician asks what more can be
told in regard to these parts and these functions, or the
state of his disposition or mind; but in doing this he
2
1 For instance, the physician should not ask, Was not this or that circum-
stance present? He should never be guilty of making such suggestions,
which tend to seduce the patient into giving a false answer and a false account
of his symptoms.
2 For example, what is the character of his stools?
his water? How is it with his day and night sleep?
of his disposition, his humour, his memory? How
How does he pass
What is the state
about the thirst?
104
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
only makes use of general expressions, in order that his
informants may be obliged to enter into special details
concerning them.
§ 89.
When the patient (for it is on him we have chiefly to
rely for a description of his sensations, except in the case
of feigned diseases) has by these details, given of his own
accord and in answer to inquiries, furnished the requisite
information and traced a tolerably perfect picture of the
disease, the physician is at liberty and obliged (if he
feels he has not yet gained all the information he needs)
to ask more precise, more special questions.¹
What sort of taste has he in his mouth? What kinds of food and drink
are most relished? What are most repugnant to him? Has each its full
natural taste, or some other unusual taste? How does he feel after eating
or drinking? Has he anything to tell about the head, the limbs, or the
abdomen ?
1 For example, how often are his bowels moved? What is the exact
character of the stools? Did the whitish evacuation consist of mucus or
fæces? Had he or had he not pains during the evacuation ?
What was
their exact character, and where were they seated? What did the patient
vomit ? Is the bad taste in the mouth putrid, or bitter, or sour, or what
before or after eating, or during the repast? At what period of the day
was it worst ? What is the taste of what is eructated? Does the urine only
become turbid on standing, or is it turbid when first discharged? What is
its colour when first emitted? Of what colour is the sediment? How does
he behave during sleep? Does he whine, moan, talk or cry out in his sleep?
Does he start during sleep? Does he snore during inspiration, or during
expiration ? Does he lie only on his back, or on which side? Does he cover
himself well up, or can he not bear the clothes on him? Does he easily
awake, or does he sleep too soundly? How does he feel immediately after
waking from sleep? How often does this or that symptom occur? what is
the cause that produces it each time it occurs ? does it come on whilst sitting,
lying, standing, or when in motion? only when fasting, or in the morning,
or only in the evening, or only after a meal, or when does it usually appear?
When did the rigor come on? was it merely a chilly sensation, or was he
actually cold at the same time? if so, in what parts? or while feeling chilly,
was he actually warm to the touch? was it merely a sensation of cold, with-
out shivering? was he hot, without redness of the face? what parts of him
were hot to the touch? or did he complain of heat without being hot to the
touch? How long did the chilliness last ? how long the hot stage? When
did the thirst come on-during the cold stage? during the heat? or previous
to it? or subsequently to it? How great was the thirst, and what was the
beverage desired? When did the sweat come on-at the beginning or the
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
105
§ 90.
When the physician has finished writing down these
particulars, he then makes a note of what he himself
observes in the patient,¹ and ascertains how much of that
was peculiar to the patient in his healthy state.
§ 91.
The symptoms and feelings of the patient during a
previous course of medicine do not furnish the pure
picture of the disease; but, on the other hand, those
symptoms and ailments which he suffered from before the
use of the medicines, or after they had been discontinued
for several days, give the true fundamental idea of the
original form of the disease, and these especially the
physician must take note of. When the disease is of a
chronic character, and the patient has been taking medi-
cine up to the time he is seen, the physician may with
advantage leave him some days quite without medicine,
or in the meantime administer something of an unmedi-
cinal nature and defer to a subsequent period the more
precise scrutiny of the morbid symptoms, in order to be
able to grasp in their purity the permanent uncontaminated
end of the heat? or how many hours after the heat ? when asleep or when
awake? How great was the sweat ? was it warm or cold? on what parts ?
how did it smell? What does he complain of before or during the cold
stage? what during the hot stage? what after it? what during or after the
sweating stage? &c.
1 For example, how the patient behaved during the visit-whether he was
morose, quarrelsome, hasty, lacrimose, anxious, despairing or sad, or hopeful,
calm, &c.
Whether he was in a drowsy state or in any way dull of com-
prehension; whether he spoke hoarsely, or in a low tone, or incoherently,
or how otherwise did he talk? what was the colour of his face and
eyes, and of his skin generally? what degree of liveliness and power was
there in his expression and eyes? what was the state of his tongue, his
breathing, the smell from his mouth, and his hearing? were his pupils dilated
or contracted? how rapidly and to what extent did they alter in the dark and
in the light? what was the character of the pulse ? what the condition of the
abdomen? how moist or hot, how cold or dry to the touch, was the skin of
this or that part, or generally? whether he lay with head thrown back, with
mouth half or wholly open, with the arms placed above the head, on his
back, or in what other position? what effort did he make to raise himself?
and anything else in him that may strike the physician as being remarkable.
106
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
symptoms of the old affection and to form a faithful
picture of the disease.
§ 92.
But if it be a disease of a rapid course, and if its
serious character admit of no delay, the physician must
content himself with observing the morbid condition,
altered though it may be by medicines, if he cannot
ascertain what symptoms were present before the employ-
ment of the medicines,-in order that he may at least
form a just apprehension of the complete picture of the
disease in its actual condition, that is to say, of the con-
joint malady formed by the medicinal and original
diseases, which from the use of inappropriate drugs is
generally more serious and dangerous than was the
original disease, and hence demands prompt and efficient
aid; and by thus tracing out the complete picture of the
disease he will be enabled to combat it with a suitable
homœopathic remedy, so that the patient shall not fall a
sacrifice to the injurious drugs he has swallowed.
§ 93.
If the disease have been brought on a short time or, in
the case of a chronic affection, a considerable time pre-
viously, by some obvious cause, then the patient-or his
friends when questioned privately-will mention it either
spontaneously or when carefully interrogated.¹
$ 94.
While inquiring into the state of chronic diseases, the
particular circumstances of the patient with regard to his
1 Any causes of a disgraceful character, which the patient or his friends do
not like to confess, at least not voluntarily, the physician must endeavour to
elicit by skilfully framing his questions, or by private information. To these
belong poisoning or attempted suicide, onanism, indulgence in ordinary or
unnatural debauchery, excesses in wine, cordials, punch and other ardent
beverages, or coffee,-over-indulgence in eating generally, or in some parti-
cular food of a hurtful character,-infection with venereal disease or itch,
unfortunate love, jealousy, domestic infelicity, worry, grief on account of
some family misfortune, ill-usage, baulked revenge, injured pride, embar-
rassment of a pecuniary nature, superstitious fear,-hunger,—or an imper-
fection in the private parts, a rupture, a prolapsus, and so forth.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
107
ordinary occupations, his usual mode of living and diet,
his domestic situation, and so forth, must be well con-
sidered and scrutinised, to ascertain what there is in them
that may tend to produce or to maintain disease, in order
that by their removal the recovery may be promoted.¹
§ 95.
In chronic diseases the investigation of the signs of
disease above mentioned, and of all others, must be pur-
sued as carefully and circumstantially as possible, and
the most minute peculiarities must be attended to, partly
because in these diseases they are the most characteristic
and least resemble those of acute diseases, and if a cure
is to be effected they cannot be too accurately noted;
partly because the patients become so used to their long
sufferings that they pay little or no heed to the lesser
accessory symptoms, which are often very pregnant with
meaning (characteristic)-often very useful in determining
the choice of the remedy-and regard them almost as a
necessary part of their condition, almost as health, the
real feeling of which they have well-nigh forgotten in their
sometimes fifteen or twenty years of suffering, and they
can scarcely bring themselves to believe that these acces-
sory symptoms, these greater or lesser deviations from the
healthy state, can have any connection with their principal
malady.
1 In chronic diseases of females it is specially necessary to pay attention
to pregnancy, sterility, sexual desire, accouchements, miscarriages, suckling,
and the state of the menstrual discharge. With respect to the last-named
more particularly, we should not neglect to ascertain if it recurs at too short
intervals, or is delayed beyond the proper time, how many days it lasts,
whether its flow is continuous or interrupted, what is its general quantity,
how dark is its colour, whether there is leucorrhoea (whites) before its
appearance or after its termination, but especially by what bodily and mental
ailments, what sensations and pains, it is preceded, accompanied or followed;
if there is leucorrhoea, what is its nature, what sensations attend its flow, in
what quantity it is, and what are the conditions and occasions under which
it occurs ?
108
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 96.
Besides this, patients themselves differ so much in
their dispositions, that some, especially the so-called
hypochondriacs and other persons of great sensitiveness
and impatient of suffering, portray their symptoms in too
vivid colours and, in order to induce the physician to
give them relief, describe their ailments in exaggerated
expressions.
1
§ 97.
Other individuals of an opposite character, however,
partly from indolence, partly from false modesty, partly
from a kind of mildness of disposition or weakness of
mind, refrain from mentioning a number of their sym-
ptoms, describe them in vague terms, or allege some of
them to be of no consequence.
§ 98.
Now, as certainly as we should listen particularly to
the patient's description of his sufferings and sensations,
and attach credence especially to his own expressions
wherewith he endeavours to make us understand his ail-
ments-because in the mouths of his firiends and attend-
ants they are usually altered and erroneously stated,-
so certainly, on the other hand, in all diseases, but espe-
cially in the chronic ones, the investigation of the true,
complete picture and its peculiarities demands especial
circumspection, tact, knowledge of human nature, caution
in conducting the inquiry and patience in an eminent
degree.
1
¹ A pure fabrication of symptoms and sufferings will never be met with in
hypochondriacs, even in the most impatient of them-a comparison of the
sufferings they complain of at various times when the physician gives them
nothing at all, or something quite unmedicinal, proves this plainly ;-but we
must deduct something from their exaggeration, at all events ascribe the
strong character of their expressions to their excessive sensibility, in which
case this very exaggeration of their expressions when talking of their
ailments becomes of itself an important symptom in the list of features of
which the portrait of the disease is composed. The case is different with
insane persons and rascally feigners of disease.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
109
§ 99.
On the whole, the investigation of acute diseases, or
of such as have existed but a short time, is much the
easiest for the physician, because all the phenomena and
deviations from the health that has been but recently
lost are still fresh in the memory of the patient and his
friends, still continue to be novel and striking. The
physician certainly requires to know everything in such
cases also; but he has much less to inquire into; they
are for the most part spontaneously detailed to him.
§ 100.
In investigating the totality of the symptoms of epi-
demic and sporadic diseases it is quite immaterial
whether or no something similar has ever appeared in the
world before under the same or any other name. The
novelty or peculiarity of a disease of that kind makes no
difference either in the mode of examining or of treating
it, as the physician must any way regard the pure
picture of every prevailing disease as if it were something
new and unknown, and investigate it thoroughly for
itself, if he desire to practise medicine in a real and
radical manner, never substituting conjecture for actual
observation, never taking for granted that the case of
disease before him is already wholly or partially known,
but always carefully examining it in all its phases; and
this mode of precedure is all the more requisite in such
cases, as a careful examination will show that every pre-
vailing disease is in many respects a phenomenon of a
unique character, differing vastly from all previous
epidemics, to which certain names have been falsely
applied-with the exception of those epidemics resulting
from a contagious principle that always remains the same,
such as smallpox, measles, &c.
§ 101.
It may easily happen that in the first case of an epi-
demic disease that presents itself to the physician's notice
110
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
.
he does not at once obtain a knowledge of its complete pic-
ture, as it is only by a close observation of several cases
of every such collective disease that he can become con-
versant with the totality of its signs and symptoms. The
carefully observing physician can, however, from the
examination of even the first and second patients, often
arrive so nearly at a knowledge of the true state as to
have in his mind a characteristic portrait of it, and even
to succeed in finding a suitable, homoeopathically adapted
remedy for it.
§ 102.
In the course of writing down the symptoms of
several cases of this kind the sketch of the disease pic-
ture becomes ever more and more complete, not more
spun out and verbose, but more significant (more cha-
racteristic), and including more of the peculiarities of
this collective disease; on the one hand, the general
symptoms (e. g. loss of appetite, sleeplessness, &c.) become
precisely defined as to their peculiarities; and on the other,
the more marked and special symptoms which are peculiar
to but few diseases and of rarer occurrence, at least in
the same combination, become prominent and constitute
what is characteristic of this malady.¹ All those affected
with the disease prevailing at a given time have certainly
contracted it from one and the same source and hence
are suffering from the same disease; but the whole ex-
tent of such an epidemic disease and the totality of its
symptoms (the knowledge whereof, which is essential
for enabling us to choose the most suitable homœopathic
remedy for this array of symptoms, is obtained by
a complete survey of the morbid picture) cannot be
learned from one single patient, but is only to be per-
fectly deduced (abstracted) and ascertained from the
sufferings of several patients of different constitutions.
-
1 The physician who has already, in the first cases, been able to choose a
remedy approximating to the homœopathic specific, will, from the subsequent
cases, be enabled either to verify the suitableness of the medicine chosen, or
to discover a more appropriate, the most appropriate homoeopathic remedy.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
111
$103.(a)
In the same manner as has here been taught relative
to the epidemic diseases, which are generally of an acute
character, the miasmatic chronic maladies, which, as I
have shown, always remain the same in their essential
nature, especially the psora, must be investigated as
to the whole sphere of their symptoms, in a much more
minute manner than has ever been done before, for in
them also one patient only exhibits a portion of their
symptoms, a second, a third, and so on, present some
other symptoms, which also are but a (dissevered, as it
were) portion of the totality of the symptoms which con-
stitute the entire extent of this malady, so that the whole
array of the symptoms belonging to such a miasmatic,
chronic disease, and especially to the psora, can only be
ascertained from the observation of very many single
patients affected with such a chronic disease, and with-
out a complete survey and collective picture of these
symptoms the medicines capable of curing the whole
malady homœopathically (to wit, the antipsorics) cannot
be discovered; and these medicines are, at the same time,
the true remedies of the several patients suffering from
such chronic affections.
S
§ 104.
When the totality of the symptoms that specially mark
and distinguish the case of disease or, in other words,
when the picture of the disease, whatever be its kind, is
once accurately sketched,' the most difficult part of the
¹ The old school physician gave himself very little trouble in this matter
in his mode of treatment. He would not listen to any minute detail of all
the circumstances of his case by the patient; indeed, he frequently cut
him short in his relation of his sufferings, in order that he might not be
delayed in the rapid writing of his prescription, composed of a variety of
ingredients unknown to him in their true effects. No allopathic physician,
as has been said, sought to learn all the minute circumstances of the patient's
case, and still less did he make a note in writing of them. On seeing the
patient again several days afterwards, he recollected nothing concerning the
few details he had heard at the first visit (having in the meantime seen so
many other patients labouring under different affections); he had allowed
112
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
task is accomplished. The physician has then the
picture of the disease, especially if it be a chronic one,
always before him to guide him in his treatment; he can in-
vestigate it in all its parts and can pick out the character-
istic symptoms, in order to oppose to these, that is to say,
to the whole malady itself, a very similar artificial mor-
bific force, in the shape of a homoeopathically chosen
medicinal substance, selected from the lists of symptoms
of all the medicines whose pure effects have been ascer-
tained. And when, during the treatment, he wishes to
ascertain what has been the effect of the medicine, and
what change has taken place in the patient's state, at
this fresh examination of the patient he only needs to
strike out of the list of the symptoms noted down at the
first visit those that have become ameliorated, to mark
what still remain, and add any new symptoms that may
have supervened.
§ 105.
The second point of the business of a true physician
relates to acquiring a knowledge of the instruments
intended for the cure of the natural diseases, investigating
the pathogenetic power of the medicines, in order, when
called on to cure, to be able to select from among them
one, from the list of whose symptoms an artificial disease
may be constructed, as similar as possible to the totality
of the principal symptoms of the natural disease sought
to be cured.
everything to go in at one ear and out at the other. At subsequent visits he
only asked a few general questions, went through the ceremony of feeling
the pulse at the wrist, looked at the tongue, and at the same moment wrote
another prescription, on equally irrational principles, or ordered the first one
to be continued (in considerable quantities several times a day), and, with a
graceful bow, he hurried off to the fiftieth or sixtieth patient he had to visit,
in this thoughtless way, in the course of that forenoon. The profession
which of all others requires actually the most reflection, a conscientious,
careful examination of the state of each individual patient and a special
treatment founded thereon, was conducted in this manner by persons who
called themselves physicians, rational practitioners. The result, as might
naturally be expected, was almost invariably bad; and yet patients had to go
to them for advice, partly because there were none better to be had, partly
for fashion's sake.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
113
$106.
The whole pathogenetic effects of the several medicines
must be known; that is to say, all the morbid symptoms
and alterations in the health, that each of them is spe-
cially capable of developing in the healthy individual must
first have been observed as far as possible, before we can
hope to be able to find among them, and to select, suit-
able homœopathic remedies for most of the natural diseases.
§ 107.
If, in order to ascertain this, medicines be given to
sick persons only, even though they be administered
singly and alone, then little or nothing precise is seen of
their pure effects, as those peculiar alterations of the
health to be expected from the medicine are mixed up
with the symptoms of the disease, and can seldom be
distinctly observed.
§ 108.
There is, therefore, no other possible way in which the
peculiar effects of medicines on the health of individuals
can be accurately ascertained-there is no sure, no more
natural way of accomplishing this object, than to admin-
ister the several medicines experimentally, in moderate
doses, to healthy persons, in order to ascertain what
changes, symptoms and signs of their influence each
individually produces on the health of the body and of
the mind; that is to say, what disease elements they are
able and tend to produce, since, as has been demon-
strated (§§ 24-27), all the curative power of medicines
1
¹ Not one single physician, as far as I know, during the previous two
thousand five hundred years, thought of this so natural, so absolutely neces-
sary and only genuine mode of testing medicines for their pure and peculiar
effects in deranging the health of man, in order to learn what morbid state
each medicine is capable of curing, except the great and immortal Albrecht
von Haller. He alone, besides myself, saw the necessity of this (vide the
Preface to the Pharmacopoeia Helvet., Basil, 1771, fol., p. 12): Nempe
primum in corpore sano medela tentanda est, sine peregrina ulla miscela;
odoreque et sapore ejus exploratis, exigua illius dosis ingerenda et ad omnes,
quæ inde contingunt, affectiones, quis pulsus, qui calor, quæ respiratio,
quænam excretiones, attendendum. Inde ad ductum phænomenorum, in
C
8
114
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
lies in this power they possess of changing the state of
man's health, and is revealed by observation of the latter.
§ 109.
I was the first that opened up this path, which I have
pursued with a perseverance that could only arise and be
kept up by a perfect conviction of the great truth, fraught
with such blessings to humanity, that it is only by the
homœopathic employment of medicines¹ that the certain
cure of human maladies is possible.2
§ 110.
I saw, moreover, that the morbid lesions which previous
authors had observed to result from medicinal substances
when taken into the stomach of healthy persons, either
in large doses given by mistake or in order to pro-
duce death in themselves or others, or under other
circumstances, accorded very much with my own observa-
tions when experimenting with the same substances on
sano obviorum, transeas ad experimenta in corpore ægroto," &c. But no one,
not a single physician, attended to or followed up this invaluable hint.
¹ It is impossible that there can be another true, best method of curing
dynamic diseases (i. e. all diseases not strictly surgical) besides homœopathy,
just as it is impossible to draw more than one straight line betwixt two
given points. He who imagines that there are other modes of curing
diseases besides it could not have appreciated homoeopathy fundamentally nor
practised it with sufficient care, nor could he ever have seen or read cases of
properly performed homoeopathic cures; nor, on the other hand, could he have
discerned the baselessness of all allopathic modes of treating diseases and
their bad or even dreadful effects, if, with such lax indifference, he places the
only true healing art on an equality with those hurtful methods of treatment,
or alleges the latter to be auxiliaries to homœopathy which it could not do
without! My true, conscientious followers, the pure homoeopathists, with
their successful, almost never-failing treatment, might teach these persons
better. (a)
2 The firstfruits of these labours, as perfect as they could be at that time,
I recorded in the Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis, sive in
sano corpore humano observatis, pts. i, ii, Lipsiæ, 8, 1805, ap. J. A. Barth ;
the more mature fruits in the Reine Arzneimittellehre, I Th., dritte Ausg.;
II Th., dritte Ausg., 1833; III Th., zweite Ausg., 1825; IV Th., zw.
Ausg., 1825; V Th., zw. Ausg., 1826; VI Th., zw. Ausg., 1827 [English
translation, Materia Medica Pura, vols. i and ii]; and in the second, third,
and fourth parts of Die chronischen Krankheiten, 1828, 1830, Dresden bei
Arnold [2nd edit., with a fifth part, Düsseldorf bei Schaub, 1835, 1839].
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
115
These authors
myself and other healthy individuals.
give details of what occurred as histories of poisoning
and as proofs of the pernicious effects of these powerful
substances, chiefly in order to warn others from their
use; partly also for the sake of exalting their own skill,
when, under the use of the remedies they employed
to combat these dangerous accidents, health gradually re-
turned; but partly also, when the persons so affected died
under their treatment, in order to seek their own justifi-
cation in the dangerous character of these substances,
which they then termed poisons. None of these ob-
servers ever dreamed that the symptoms they recorded
merely as proofs of the noxious and poisonous character
of these substances were sure revelations of the power of
these drugs to extinguish curatively similar symptoms
occurring in natural diseases, that these their patho-
genetic phenomena were intimations of their homœopathic
curative action, and that the only possible way to ascer-
tain their medicinal powers is to observe those changes
of health medicines are capable of producing in the
healthy organism; for the pure, peculiar powers of medi-
cines available for the cure of disease are to be learned
neither by any ingenious a priori speculations, nor by
the smell, taste or appearance of the drugs, nor by their
chemical analysis, nor yet by the employment of several
of them at one time in a mixture (prescription) in dis-
eases; it was never suspected that these histories of
medicinal diseases would one day furnish the first rudi-
ments of the true, pure materia medica, which from the
earliest times until now has consisted solely of false con-
jectures and fictions of the imagination-that is to say,
did not exist at all.¹
§ 111.
The agreement of my observations on the pure effects
of medicines with these older ones-although they were
1 See what I have said on this subject in the "Examination of the Sources
of the Ordinary Materia Medica," prefixed to the third part of my Reine
Arzneimittellehre [translated in the Materia Medica Pura, vol. ii].
116
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
recorded witout reference to any therapeutic object,—and
the very concordance of these accounts with others of the
same kind by different authors, must easily convince us
that medicinal substances act in the morbid changes they
produce in the healthy human body according to fixed,
eternal laws of nature, and by virtue of these are enabled
to produce certain, reliable disease symptoms, each accord-
ing to its own peculiar character.
§ 112.(a)
In those older descriptions of the often dangerous
effects of medicines ingested in excessively large doses
we notice certain states that were produced, not at the
commencement, but towards the terminntion of these sad
events, and which were of an exactly opposite nature to
those that first appeared. These symptoms, the very
reverse of the primary action (§ 63) or proper action of
the medicines on the vital force, are the reaction of the
vital force of the organism, its secondary action (§§ 62-
67), of which, however, there is seldom or hardly ever
the least trace from experiments with moderate doses on
healthy bodies, and from small doses none whatever.
In the homoeopathic curative operation the living organ-
ism reacts from these only so much as is requisite to
raise the health again to the normal healthy state (§ 67).
§ 113.
The only exceptions to this are the narcotic medicines.
As they, in their primary action, take away sometimes
the sensibility and sensation, sometimes the irritability,
it frequently happens that in their secondary action, even
from moderate experimental doses on healthy bodies, an
increased sensibility (and a greater irritability) is ob-
servable.
§ 114.
With the exception of these narcotic substances, in ex-
periments with moderate doses of medicine on healthy
bodies, we observe only their primary action, i. e. those
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
117
symptoms wherewith the medicine deranges the health of
the human being and develops in him a morbid state of
longer or shorter duration.
$ 115.
Among these symptoms, there occur in the case of
some medicines not a few which are partially, or under
certain conditions, directly opposite to other symptoms
that have previously or subsequently appeared, but
which are not therefore to be regarded as actual secon-
dary action or the mere reaction of the vital force, but
which only represent the alternating state of the various
paroxysms of the primary action; they are termed alter-
nating actions.
$116.
Some symptoms are produced by the medicines more
frequently that is to say, in many individuals, others
more rarely or in few persons, some only in very few
healthy bodies.
§ 117.(a)
To the latter category belong the so-called idiosyn-
crasies, by which are meant peculiar corporeal constitu-
tions which, although otherwise healthy, possess a dis-
position to be brought into a more or less morbid state
by certain things which seem to produce no impression
and no change in many other individuals.' But this
inability to make an impression on every one is only
apparent. For as two things are required for the pro-
duction of these as well as all other morbid alterations in
the health of man-to wit, the inherent power of the
influencing substance, and the capability of the vital force
that animates the organism to be influenced by it-the
obvious derangements of health in the so-called idio-
syncrasies cannot be laid to the account of these peculiar
1 Some few persons are apt to faint from the smell of roses, and to fall
into many other morbid, and sometimes dangerous states from partaking of
mussels, crabs or the roe of the barbel, from touching the leaves of some
kinds of sumach, &c.
118
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
constitutions alone, but they must be also ascribed to
these things that produce them, in which must lie the
power of making the same impressions on all human
bodies, yet in such a manner that but a small number of
healthy constitutions have a tendency to allow themselves
to be brought into such an obvious morbid condition by
them. That these agents do actually make this impres-
sion on every healthy body is shown by this, that when
employed as remedies they render effectual homoeopathic
service¹ to all sick persons for morbid symptoms similar
to those they seem to be only capable of producing in so-
called idiosyncratic individuals.
§ 118.
Every medicine exhibits peculiar actions
actions on the
human frame, which are not produced in exactly the
same manner by any other medicinal substance of a
different kind.2
$ 119.
As certainly as every species of plant differs in its
external form, mode of life and growth, in its taste and
smell from every other species and genus of plant, as cer-
tainly as every mineral and salt differs from all others, in
its external as well as its internal physical and chemical
properties (which alone should have sufficed to prevent
any confounding of one with another), so certainly do they
all differ and diverge among themselves in their patho-
genetic-consequently also in their therapeutic-effects.³
1 Thus the Princess Maria Porphyrogenita restored her brother, the
Emperor Alexius, who suffered from faintings, by sprinkling him with rose
water (rò τ☎v pódwv oráλayμa) in the presence of his aunt Eudoxia (Hist.
byz. Alexias, lib. xv, p. 503, ed. Posser); and Horstius (Oper., iii, p. 59) saw
great benefit from rose vinegar in cases of syncope.(«)
2 This fact was also perceived by the estimable A. v. Haller, who says
(Preface to his Hist. stirp. helv.): "Latet immensa virium diversitas in iis
ipsis plantis, quarum facies externas dudum novimus, animas quasi et quod-
cunque cælestius habent, nondum perspeximus.”
3 Anyone who has a thorough knowledge of, and can appreciate the
remarkable difference of effects on the health of man of every single sub-
stance from those of every other, will readily perceive that among them there
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
119
Each of these substances produces alterations in the
health of human beings in a peculiar, different, yet deter-
minate manner, so as to preclude the possibility of con-
founding one with the other.¹(a)
§ 120.
Therefore medicines, on which depend man's life and
death, disease and health, must be thoroughly and most
carefully distinguished from one another, and for this pur-
pose tested by careful, pure experiments on the healthy
body for the purpose of ascertaining their powers and real
effects, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of them,
can be, in a medicinal point of view, no equivalent remedies whatever, no
surrogates. Only those who do not know the pure, positive effects of the
different medicines can be so foolish as to try to persuade us that one can
serve in the stead of the other, and can in the same disease prove just as
serviceable as the other. Thus do ignorant children confound the most essen-
tially different things, because they scarcely know their external appearances,
far less their real value, their true importance and their very dissimilar
inherent properties.
1 If this be pure truth, as it undoubtedly is, then no physician who would
not be regarded as devoid of reason, and who would not act contrary to the
dictates of his conscience, the sole arbiter of real worth, can employ in the
treatment of diseases any medicinal substance but one with whose real signifi-
cance he is thoroughly and perfectly conversant, i. e. whose positive action on
the health of healthy individuals he has so accurately tested that he knows
for certain that it is capable of producing a very similar morbid state,
more similar than any other medicine with which he is perfectly acquainted,
to that presented by the case of disease he intends to cure by means of it;
for, as has been shown above, neither man, nor mighty Nature herself, can
effect a perfect, rapid and permanent cure otherwise than with a homœo-
pathic remedy. Henceforth no true physician can abstain from making such
experiments, in order to obtain this most necessary and only knowledge of the
medicines that are essential to cure, this knowledge which has hitherto been
neglected by the physicians in all ages. In all former ages-posterity will
scarcely believe it-physicians have hitherto contented themselves with blindly
prescribing for diseases medicines whose value was unknown, and which had
never been tested relative to their highly important, very various, pure, dynamic
action on the health of man; and, moreover, they mingled several of these un-
known medicines that differed so vastly among each other in one formula, and
left it to chance to determine what effect should thereby be produced on the
patient. This is just as if a madman should force his way into the workshop
of an artisan, seize upon handfuls of very different tools, with the uses of all
of which he is quite unacquainted, in order, as he imagines, to work at the
objects of art he sees around him. I need hardly remark that these would
be destroyed, I may say utterly ruined, by his senseless operations.
120
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
and to enable us to avoid any mistake in their employment
in diseases, for it is only by correct selection of them that
the greatest of all earthly blessings, the health of the
body and of the mind, can be rapidly and permanently
restored.
§ 121.
.
In proving medicines to ascertain their effects on the
healthy body, it must be borne in mind that the strong,
heroic substances, as they are termed, are liable even in
small doses to produce changes in the health even of
robust persons. Those of milder power must be given
for these experiments in more considerable quantities;
in order to observe the action of the very weakest, how-
ever, the subjects of experiment should be persons free
from disease, and who are delicate, irritable and sensi-
tive.
§ 122.
In these experiments-on which depends the exacti-
tude of the whole medical art, and the weal of all future
generations of mankind—no other medicines should be
employed except such as are perfectly well known, and
of whose purity, genuineness and energy we are thoroughly
assured.
§ 123.
Each of these medicines must be taken in a perfectly
simple, unadulterated form; the indigenous plants in
the form of freshly expressed juice, mixed with a little
alcohol to prevent it spoiling; exotic vegetable substances,
however, in the form of powder, or tincture prepared
with alcohol when they were in the fresh state, and after-
wards mingled with a certain proportion of water; salts
and gums, however, should be dissolved in water just
before being taken. If the plant can only be procured
in its dry state, and if its powers are naturally weak, in
that case there may be used for the experiment an infu-
sion of it, made by cutting the herb into small pieces and
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
121
pouring boiling water on it, so as to extract its medicinal
parts; immediately after its preparation it must be swal-
lowed whilst still warm, as all expressed vegetable juices
and all aqueous infusions of herbs, without the addition
of spirit, pass rapidly into fermentation and decomposi-
tion, whereby all their medicinal properties are lost.
$ 124.
For these experiments every medicinal substance
must be employed quite alone and perfectly pure, with-
out the admixture of any foreign substance, and without
taking anything else of a medicinal nature the same day,
nor yet on the subsequent days, nor during all the time
we wish to observe the effects of the medicine.(a)
༤.
§ 125.
During all the time the experiment lasts the diet
must be strictly regulated; it should be as much as
possible destitute of spices, of a purely nutritious and
simple character, green vegetables,¹ roots, and all salads
and herb soups (which, even when most carefully pre-
pared, possess some disturbing medicinal qualities) should
be avoided. The drinks are to be those usually partaken
of, as little stimulating as possible."
2
§ 126.
The person who is proving the medicine must during
the whole time of the experiment avoid all over-exertion
of mind and body, all sorts of dissipation and disturbing
passions; he should have no urgent business to distract his
attention; he must devote himself to careful self-observa-
tion and not be disturbed whilst so engaged; his body
must be in what is for him a good state of health, and
1 Young green peas, green French beans and in all cases carrots are allow-
able, as the least medicinal vegetables.
2 The subject of experiment must either be not in the habit of taking
pure wine, brandy, coffee or tea, or he must have totally abstained for a con-
siderable time previously from the use of these injurious beverages, some of
which are stimulating, others medicinal.
122
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
he must possess a sufficient amount of intelligence to be
able to express and describe his sensations in accurate
terms.(a)
§ 127.(a)
The medicines must be tested on both males and
females, in order also to reveal the alterations of the
health they produce in the sexual sphere.
§ 128.(a)
The most recent observations have shown that medi-
cinal substances, when taken in their crude state by the
experimenter for the purpose of testing their peculiar
effects, do not exhibit nearly the full amount of the
powers that lie hidden in them which they do when they
are taken for the same object in high dilutions poten-
tized by proper trituration and succussion, by which
simple operations the powers which in their crude state
lay hidden and, as it were, dormant, are developed and
roused into activity to an incredible extent. In this
manner we now find it best to investigate the medicinal
powers even of such substances as are deemed weak, and
the plan we adopt is to give to the experimenter, on an
empty stomach, daily from four to six very small globules
of the thirtieth potentized dilution of such a substance,
moistened with a little water, and let him continue this
for several days.
§ 129.
If the effects that result from such a dose are but
slight, a few more globules may be taken daily, until they
become more distinct and stronger and the alterations of
the health more conspicuous; for all persons are not
affected by a medicine in an equally great degree; on the
contrary, there is a vast variety in this respect, so that
sometimes an apparently weak individual may be scarcely
at all affected by moderate doses of a medicine known to
be of a powerful character, whilst he is strongly enough
acted on by some others of a much weaker kind. And,
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
123
on the other hand, there are very robust persons who
experience very considerable morbid symptoms from an
apparently mild medicine, and only slighter symptoms
from stronger drugs. Now, as this cannot be known
beforehand, it is advisable to commence in every instance
with a small dose of the drug and, where suitable and
requisite, to increase the dose more and more from day
to day.(a)
§ 130.
If, at the very commencement, the first dose admin-
istered shall have been sufficiently strong, this advantage
is gained, that the experimenter learns the order of suc-
cession of the symptoms and can note down accurately
the period at which each occurs, which is very useful in
leading to a knowledge of the genius of the medicine, for
then the order of the primary actions, as also that of the
alternating actions, is observed in the most unambiguous
manner. A very moderate dose even, often suffices for
the experiment, provided only the experimenter is endowed
with sufficiently delicate sensitiveness, and is very atten-
tive to his sensations. The duration of the action of a
drug can only be ascertained by a comparison of several
experiments.
$131.
If, however, in order to ascertain anything at all, the
same medicine must be given to the same person to test
for several successive days in ever-increasing doses, we
thereby learn, no doubt, the various morbid states this
medicine is capable of producing in a general manner,
but we do not ascertain their order of succession; and the
subsequent dose often removes, curatively, some one or
other of the symptoms caused by the previous dose, or
develops in its stead an opposite state; such symptoms
should be enclosed in brackets, to mark their ambiguity,
until subsequent purer experiments show whether they
are the reaction of the organism and secondary action or
an alternating action of this medicine.
124
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 132.
But when the object is, without reference to the
sequential order of the phenomena and the duration of
the action of the drug, only to ascertain the symptoms
themselves, especially those of a weak medicinal substance,
in that case the preferable course to pursue is to give it
for several successive days, increasing the dose every
day.(a) In this manner the action of an unknown medi-
cine, even of the mildest nature, will be revealed, espe-
cially if tested on sensitive persons.
§ 133.
On experiencing any particular sensation from the
medicine, it is useful, indeed necessary, in order to deter-
mine the exact character of the symptom, to assume
various positions while it lasts, and to observe whether,
by moving the part affected, by walking in the room or
the open air, by standing, sitting or lying the symptom
is increased, diminished or removed, and whether it
returns on again assuming the position in which it was
first observed,—whether it is altered by eating or drink-
ing, or by any other condition, or by speaking, coughing,
sneezing or any other action of the body, and at the same
time to note at what time of the day or night it usually
occurs in the most marked manner, whereby what is
peculiar to and characteristic of each symptom will
become apparent.
§ 134.
All external influences, and more especially medicines,
possess the property of producing in the health of the
living organism a particular kind of alteration peculiar
to themselves; but all the symptoms peculiar to a medi-
cine do not appear in one person, nor all at once, nor in
the same experiment, but some occur in one person
chiefly at one time, others again during a second or third
trial; in another person some other symptoms appear,
but in such a manner that probably some of the pheno-
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
125
mena are observed in the fourth, eighth or tenth person
which had already appeared in the second, sixth or ninth
person, and so forth; moreover, they may not recur at
the same hour.
$ 135.
The whole of the elements of disease a medicine is
capable of producing can only be brought to anything
like completeness by numerous observations on suitable
persons of both sexes and of various constitutions. We
can only be assured that a medicine has been thoroughly
proved in regard to the morbid states it can produce-
that is to say, in regard to its pure powers of altering the
health of man-when subsequent experimenters can notice
little of a novel character from its action, and almost
always only the same symptoms as had been already
observed by others.
§ 136.
(Although, as has been said, a medicine, on being
proved on healthy subjects, cannot develop in one person
all the alterations of health it is capable of causing, but
can only do this when given to many different individuals,
varying in their corporeal and mental constitution, yet
the tendency to excite all these symptoms in every
human being exists in it [§ 117], according to an eternal
and immutable law of nature, by virtue of which all its
effects, even those that are but rarely developed in the
healthy person, are brought into operation in the case of
every individual if administered to him when he is in a
morbid state presenting similar symptoms; it then, even in
the smallest dose, being homoeopathically selected, silently
produces in the patient an artificial state closely re-
sembling the natural disease, which rapidly and per-
manently [homœopathically] frees and cures him of his
original malady.)
§ 137.
The more moderate, within certain limits, the doses of
the medicine used for such experiments are-provided we
126
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
endeavour to facilitate the observation by the selection of
a person who is a lover of truth, temperate in all respects,
of delicate feelings, and who can direct the most minute
attention to his sensations-so much the more distinctly
are the primary effects developed, and only these, which
are most worth knowing, occur without any admixture of
secondary effects or reactions of the vital force. When,
however, excessively large doses are used there occur at
the same time not only a number of secondary effects
among the symptoms, but the primary effects also come
on in such hurried confusion and with such impetuosity
that nothing can be accurately observed; let alone the
danger attending them, which no one who has any regard
for his fellow-creatures, and who looks on the meanest
of mankind as his brother, will deem an indifferent matter.
$138.
All the sufferings, accidents and changes of the health
of the experimenter during the action of a medicine (pro-
vided the above conditions [§§ 124-127] essential to a
good and pure experiment are complied with) are solely
derived from this medicine, and must be regarded and
registered as belonging peculiarly to this medicine, as
symptoms of this medicine, even though the experimenter
had observed, a considerable time previously, the spon-
taneous occurrence of similar phenomena in himself. The
reappearance of these during the trial of the medicine
only shows that this individual is, by virtue of his pecu-
liar constitution, particularly disposed to have such
symptoms excited in him. In this case they are the
effect of the medicine; the symptoms do not arise spon-
taneously while the medicine that has been taken is
exercising an influence over the health of the whole
system, but are produced by the medicine.
§ 139.
When the physician does not make the trial of the
medicine on himself, but gives it to another person, the
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
127
F
latter must note down distinctly the sensations, suffer-
ings, accidents and changes of health he experiences at
the time of their occurrence, mentioning the time after
the ingestion of the drug when each symptom arose and,
if it lasts long, the period of its duration. The physician
looks over the report in the presence of the experimenter
immediately after the experiment is concluded, or if
the trial lasts several days he does this every day, in
order, whilst everything is still fresh in his memory, to
question him about the exact nature of every one of these
circumstances, and to write down the more precise
details so elicited, or to make such alterations as the expe-
rimenter may suggest.
1
$140.
If the person cannot write, the physician must be
informed by him every day of what has occurred to him,
and how it took place. What is noted down as authentic
information on this point, however, must be chiefly the
voluntary narration of the person who makes the ex-
periment, nothing conjectural and as little as possible
derived from answers to leading questions should be
admitted; everything must be ascertained with the same
caution as I have counselled above (§§ 84-99) for the
investigation of the phenomena and for tracing the picture
of natural diseases.
$141.
But the best provings of the pure effects of simple
medicines in altering the human health, and of the arti-
ficial diseases and symptoms they are capable of de-
veloping in the healthy individual, are those which the
healthy, unprejudiced and sensitive physician institutes
on himself with all the caution and care here enjoined.
1 He who makes known to the medical world the results of such experi-
ments becomes thereby responsible for the trustworthiness of the person
experimented on and his statements, and justly so, as the weal of suffering
humanity is here at stake.
128
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
He knows with the greatest certainty the things he has
experienced in his own person.
1
§ 142.
2
But how some symptoms of the simple medicine em-
employed for a curative purpose can be distinguished
amongst the symptoms of the original malady, even in
diseases, especially in those of a chronic character that
usually remain unaltered, is a subject appertaining to the
¹ Those trials made by the physician on himself have for him other and
inestimable advantages. In the first place, the great truth that the medi-
cinal virtue of all drugs, whereon depends their curative power, lies in
the changes of health he has himself undergone from the medicines
he has proved, and the morbid states he has himself experienced from them,
becomes for him an incontrovertible fact. Again, by such noteworthy
observations on himself he will be brought to understand his own sensations,
his mode of thinking and his disposition (the foundation of all true wisdom :
yvã¤ɩ σɛavтòv), and he will be also trained to be, what every physician
ought to be, a good observer. All our observations on others are not nearly
so interesting as those made on ourselves. The observer of others must
always dread lest the experimenter did not feel exactly what he said, or lest
he did not describe his sensations with the most appropriate expressions. He
must always remain in doubt whether he has not been deceived, at least to
some extent. These obstacles to the knowledge of the truth, which can never
be thoroughly surmounted in our investigations of the artificial morbid sym-
ptoms that occur in others from the ingestion of medicines, cease entirely
when we make the trials on ourselves. He who makes these trials on him-
self knows for certain what he has felt, and each trial is a new inducement
for him to investigate the powers of other medicines. He thus becomes
more and more practised in the art of observing, of such importance to the
physician, by continuing to observe himself, the one on whom he can most
rely and who will never deceive him; and this he will do all the more zealously
as these experiments on himself promise to give him a reliable knowledge
of the true value and significance of the instruments of cure that are still to a
great degree unknown to our art. Let it not be imagined that such slight
indispositions caused by taking medicines for the purpose of proving them
can be in the main injurious to the health. Experience shows, on the con-
trary, that the organism of the prover becomes, by these frequent attacks on
his health, all the more expert in repelling all external influences inimical to
his frame and all artificial and natural morbific noxious agents, and becomes
more hardened to resist everything of an injurious character, by means of
these moderate experiments on his own person with medicines. His health be-
comes more unalterable; he becomes more robust, as all experience shows. («)
2 Symptoms which, during the whole course of the disease, might have
been observed only a long time previously, or never before, consequently new
ones, belonging to the medicine.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
129
higher art of judgment, and must be left exclusively to
masters in observation.
§ 143.
If we have thus tested on the healthy individual a
considerable number of simple medicines and carefully
and faithfully registered all the disease elements and
symptoms they are capable of developing as artificial
disease-producers, then only have we a true materia
medica-a collection of real, pure, reliable¹ modes of
action of simple medicinal substances, a volume of the
book of nature, wherein is recorded a considerable array
of the peculiar changes of the health and symptoms
ascertained to belong to each of the powerful medicines,
as they were revealed to the attention of the observer, in
which the likeness of the (homoeopathic) disease elements
of many natural diseases to be hereafter cured by them
are present, which, in a word, contain artificial morbid
states, that furnish for the similar natural morbid states
the only true, homoeopathic, that is to say specific, thera-
peutic instruments for effecting their certain and per-
manent cure.
§ 144.
From such a materia medica everything that is con-
jectural, all that is mere assertion or imaginary should
be strictly excluded; everything should be the pure
language of nature carefully and honestly interrogated.
$ 145.
Of a truth, it is only by a very considerable store
of medicines accurately known in respect of these
their pure modes of action in altering the health of
man, that we can be placed in a position to discover a
1 Latterly it has been the habit to entrust the proving of medicines to
unknown persons at a distance, who were paid for their work, and the infor-
mation so obtained was printed. But by so doing, the work which is of all
others the most important, which is to form the basis of the only true healing
art, and which demands the greatest moral certainty and trustworthiness,
seems to me, I regret to say, to become doubtful and uncertain in its results,
and to lose all value.(")
9
130
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
1
homœopathic remedy, a suitable artificial (curative)
morbific analogue for each of the infinitely numerous
morbid states in nature, for every malady in the world."
In the meantime, even now-thanks to the truthful
character of the symptoms, (a) and to the abundance of
disease elements which every one of the powerful medi-
cinal substances has already shown in its action on the
healthy body-but few diseases remain, for which a toler-
ably suitable homoeopathic remedy may not be met with
among those now proved as to their pure action, which,
without much disturbance, restores health in a gentle,
sure and permanent manner-infinitely more surely and
safely than can be effected by all the general and special
therapeutics of the old allopathic medical art with its
unknown composite remedies, which do but alter and
aggravate but cannot cure chronic diseases, and rather
retard than promote recovery from acute diseases.(a)
2
§ 146.(a)
The third point of the business of a true physician
relates to the judicious employment of the artificial mor-
bific agents (medicines) that have been proved on healthy
individuals to ascertain their pure action, in order to effect
the homeopathic cure of natural diseases.
S
$147.
Whichever of these medicines that have been investi-
gated as to their power of altering man's health we find
to contain in the symptoms observed from its use the
greatest similarity to the totality of the symptoms of a
1 At first I was the only person who made the proving of the pure powers
of medicines the most important of his occupations. Since then I have been
assisted in this by some young men, who instituted experiments on them-
selves, and whose observations I have critically revised. But what shall we
not be able to effect in the way of curing in the whole extent of the infinitely
large domain of disease, when numbers of accurate and trustworthy observers
shall have rendered their services in enriching this, the only true materia
medica, by careful experiments on themselves! The healing art will then
come near the mathematical sciences in certainty.
2 See the second note to § 109.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
131
given natural disease, this medicine will and must be
the most suitable, the most certain homœopathic remedy
for the disease; in it is found the specific remedy of this
case of disease.
§ 148.
A medicine selected in this manner, which has the
power and the tendency to produce symptoms the most
similar possible to the disease to be cured, consequently
a similar artificial disease, given in a suitable dose, affects,
in its dynamic action on the morbidly deranged vital force
of the individual, those very parts and points in the
organism now suffering from the natural disease, and
produces in them its own artificial disease, which, on
account of its great similarity and preponderating strength,
occupies precisely the seat hitherto occupied by the
natural morbid derangement, so that the instinctive, auto-
matic vital force is from that time forward no longer
affected by the natural disease but solely by the stronger,
similar medicinal disease; which in its turn, on account
of the small dose of the remedy, being, like every
moderate medicinal disease, overcome by the increased
energy of the vital force, soon spontaneously disappears,
leaving the body free from all disease, that is to say,
healthy and permanently cured.
§ 149.
When the suitable homœopathic remedy has been thus
selected¹ and rightly employed, the acute disease we wish
1 But this laborious, sometimes very laborious, search for and selection of
the homœopathic remedy most suitable in every respect to each morbid state,
is an operation which, notwithstanding all the admirable books for facilitating
it, still demands the study of the original sources themselves, and at the same
time a great amount of circumspection and serious deliberation, which have
their best reward in the consciousness of having faithfully discharged our
duty. How could this laborious, care-demanding task, by which alone the
best way of curing diseases is rendered possible, please the gentlemen of the
new mongrel sect, who assume the honourable name of homœopathists, and
even seem to employ medicines in form and appearance homoeopathic, but
determined upon by them anyhow (quidquid in buccam venit), and who, when
the unsuitable remedy does not immediately give relief, in place of laying
the blame on their unpardonable ignorance and laxity in performing the
+
132
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
to cure, even though it be of a grave character and attended
by many sufferings, subsides insensibly, in a few hours if
it be of recent date, in a few days if it be of somewhat
longer standing, along with all traces of indisposition,
and nothing or almost nothing more of the artificial
medicinal disease is perceived; there occurs, by rapid,
imperceptible transitions, nothing but restored health,
recovery. Diseases of long standing (and especially such
as are of a complicated character) require for their cure a
proportionately longer time. More especially do the
chronic medicinal dyscrasias so often produced by allo-
pathic bungling, along with the natural disease left
uncured by it, require a much longer time for their re-
covery; often, indeed, are they incurable, in consequence
of the shameful robbery of the patient's strength and
juices, the principal feat performed by allopathy in its
so-called methods of treatment.
§ 150.
If a patient complain of one or more trivial symptoms,
that have been only observed a short time previously, the
most important and serious of all human affairs, ascribe it to homœopathy,
which they accuse of great imperfection (if the truth be told, its imperfection
consists in this, that the most suitable homœopathic remedy for each morbid
condition does not spontaneously fly into their mouths like roasted pigeons,
without any trouble on their own part). They know, however, from frequent
practice, how to make up for the inefficiency of the scarcely half homoeo-
pathic remedy by the employment of allopathic means, that come much more
handy to them, among which one or more dozens of leeches applied to the
affected part, or little harmless venesections to the extent of eight ounces,
and so forth, play an important part; and should the patient, in spite of all
this, recover, they extol their venesections, leeches, &c., alleging that, had it
not been for these, the patient would not have been pulled through, and they
give us to understand, in no doubtful language, that these operations, derived
without much exercise of genius from the pernicious routine of the old school,
in reality contributed the best share towards the cure. But if the patient die
under the treatment, as not unfrequently happens, they seek to console the
friends by saying that "they themselves were witnesses that everything con-
ceivable had been done for the lamented deceased." Who would do this
frivolous and pernicious tribe the honour to call them, after the name of the
very laborious but salutary art, homœopathic physicians? May the just
recompense await them, that, when taken ill, they may be treated in the
same manner! (a)
2
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
133
physician should not regard this as a fully developed dis-
ease that requires serious medical aid. A slight altera-
tion in the diet and regimen will usually suffice to dispel
such an indisposition.
§ 151.
But if the patient complain of a few violent sufferings,
the physician will usually find, on investigation, several
other symptoms besides, although of a slighter character,
which furnish a complete picture of the disease.
§ 152.
The worse the acute disease is, of so much the more
numerous and striking symptoms is it generally composed,
but with so much the more certainty may a suitable
remedy for it be found, if there be a sufficient number of
medicines known with respect to their positive action, to
choose from. Among the lists of symptoms of many
medicines it will not be difficult to find one from whose
separate disease elements an antitype of curative artificial
disease, very like the totality of the symptoms of the
natural disease, may be constructed, and such a medicine
is the desired remedy.
§ 153.
In this search for a homoeopathic specific remedy, that
is to say, in this comparison of the collective symptoms
of the natural disease with the lists of symptoms of known
medicines, in order to find among these an artificial mor-
bific agent corresponding by similarity to the disease to
be cured, the more striking, singular, uncommon, and
peculiar (characteristic) signs and symptoms of the case
1
1 Dr. von Bönninghausen, who has already distinguished himself by his
labours in connection with the new system of medicine, has lately increased
our obligation to him by the publication of his important little book setting
forth the characteristic symptoms, more particularly of the antipsoric medi-
cines, entitled Uebersicht der Hauptwirkungs-Sphäre der antips. Arz.,
Münster, bei Coppenrath, 1833, and the appendix thereto (containing the
antisyphilitic and antisycotic medicines) at the end of the second edition of
his Systematisch-alphabetisches Repertorium der antipsorischen Arzneien, bei
Coppenrath in Münster.
134
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
of disease are chiefly and almost solely to be kept in
view; for it is more particularly these that very similar
ones in the list of symptoms of the selected medicine
must correspond to, in order to constitute it the most suit-
able for effecting the cure. The more general and
undefined symptoms: loss of appetite, headache, debility,
restless sleep, discomfort, and so forth, demand but little
attention when of that vague and indefinite character, if
they cannot be more accurately described, as symptoms
of such a general nature are observed in almost every
disease and from almost every drug.
§ 154.
If the antitype constructed from the list of symptoms
of the most suitable medicine contain those peculiar, un-
common, singular and distinguishing (characteristic)
symptoms, which are to be met with in the disease to be
cured in the greatest number and in the greatest simi-
larity, this medicine is the most appropriate homœopathic
specific remedy for this morbid state; the disease, if it
be not one of very long standing, will generally be
removed and extinguished by the first dose of it, without
any considerable disturbance.
§ 155.
I say without any considerable disturbance. For in
the employment of this most appropriate homœopathic
remedy it is only the symptoms of the medicine that
correspond to the symptoms of the disease that are called
into play, the former occupying the place of the latter
(weaker) in the organism, and thereby annihilating them
by overpowering them; but the other symptoms of the
homœopathic medicine, which are often very numerous,
being in no way applicable to the case of disease in ques-
tion, are not called into play at all. The patient, growing
hourly better, feels almost nothing of them at all, because
the excessively minute dose requisite for homoeopathic use
is much too weak to produce the other symptoms of the
medicine that are not homoeopathic to the case, in those
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
135
parts of the body that are free from disease, and conse-
quently can allow only the homœopathic symptoms to act
on the parts of the organism that are already most irri-
tated and excited by the similar symptoms of the disease,
thus changing the morbid affection of the vital force into
a similar but stronger medicinal disease, whereby the
original malady is extinguished.
§ 156.(a)
There is, however, almost no homoeopathic medicine,
be it ever so suitably chosen, that, especially if it should
be given in an insufficiently minute dose, will not produce,
in very irritable and sensitive patients, at least one trifling,
unusual disturbance, some slight new symptom whilst
its action lasts; for it is next to impossible that medicine
and disease should cover one another symptomatically as
exactly as two triangles with equal sides and equal angles.
But this (in ordinary circumstances) unimportant differ-
ence will be easily done away with by the potential
activity (energy) of the living organism, and is not per-
ceptible by patients not excessively delicate; the restora-
tion goes forwards, notwithstanding, to the goal of perfect
recovery, if it be not prevented by the action of hetero-
geneous medicinal influences upon the patient, by errors
of regimen or by excitement of the passions.
§ 157.(a)
But though it is certain that a homœopathically selected
remedy does, by reason of its appropriateness and the
minuteness of the dose, gently remove and annihilate the
acute disease analogous to it, without manifesting its
other, unhomoeopathic symptoms, that is to say, without
the production of new, serious disturbances, yet it usually,
immediately after ingestion-for the first hour, or for a
few hours-causes a kind of slight aggravation (where
the dose has been somewhat too large, however, for a
considerable number of hours), which has so much re-
semblance to the original disease that it seems to the
patient to be an aggravation of his own disease.
But it is,
136
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
in reality, nothing more than an extremely similar
medicinal disease, somewhat exceeding in strength the
original affection.
§ 158.
This slight homœopathic aggravation during the first
hours-a very good prognostic that the acute disease
will most probably yield to the first dose-is quite as it
ought to be, as the medicinal disease must naturally be
somewhat stronger than the malady to be cured if it is
to overpower and extinguish the latter, just as a natural
disease can remove and annihilate another one similar to
it only when it is stronger than the latter (§§ 43—48).
§ 159.
The smaller the dose of the homoeopathic remedy is, so
much the slighter and shorter is this apparent increase of
the disease during the first hours.
$160.
But as the dose of a homeopathic remedy can scarcely
ever be made so small that it shall not be able to relieve,
overpower, indeed completely cure and annihilate the
uncomplicated natural disease of not long standing that is
analogous to it (§ 249, note), we can understand why a
dose of an appropriate homoeopathic medicine, not the
very smallest possible, does always, during the first hour
after its ingestion, produce a perceptible homœopathic
aggravation of this kind.¹
1
This exaltation of the medicinal symptoms over those disease symptoms
analogous to them, which looks like an aggravation, has been observed by
other physicians also, when by accident they employed a homœopathic remedy.
When a patient suffering from itch complains of an increase of the eruption
after sulphur, his physician, who knows not the cause of this, consoles him
with the assurance that the itch must first come out properly before it can
be cured; he knows not, however, that this is a sulphur eruption, that assumes
the appearance of an increase of the itch.
The facial eruption which the viola tricolor cured was aggravated by it
at the commencement of its action," Leroy tells us (Heilk. für Mütter,
p. 406), but he knew not that the apparent aggravation was owing to the
somewhat too large dose of the remedy, which in this instance was to a certain
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
137
§ 161.(a)
1
When I here limit the so-called homoeopathic aggrava-
tion, or rather the primary action of the homœopathic
medicine that seems to increase somewhat the symptoms
of the original disease, to the first or few first hours,
this is certainly true with respect to diseases of a more
acute character and of recent origin; but where medi-
cines of long action have to combat a malady of consider-
able or of very long standing, where one dose, conse-
quently, must continue to act for many days, we then
occasionally see, during the first six, eight or ten days,
the occurrence of some such primary actions of the medi-
cine, some such apparent increase of the symptoms of the
original disease (lasting for one or several hours), whilst
in the intervening hours amelioration of the whole malady
is perceptible. After the lapse of these few days the
amelioration resulting from such primary action of the
medicine proceeds almost uninterruptedly for several days
longer.
$162.
It sometimes happens, owing to the moderate number of
medicines yet known with respect to their true, pure action,
that but a portion of the symptoms of the disease under
treatment are to be met with in the list of symptoms of
the most appropriate medicine, consequently this imperfect
extent homœopathic. Lysons says (Med. Transact., vol. ii, London, 1772),
"The bark of the elm cures most certainly those skin diseases which it
increases at the beginning of its action." Had he not given the bark in the
monstrous doses usual in the allopathic system, but in the quite small doses
requisite when the medicine shows similarity of symptoms, that is to say,
when it is used homeopathically, he would have effected a cure without, or
almost without, seeing this apparent increase of the disease (homœopathic
aggravation).
1 If the action of those medicines to which the longest duration of action
is proper, quickly expires in acute diseases—most quickly in those that are
most acute-it is proportionately long lasting in chronic diseases (of psoric
origin), and hence it happens that the antipsoric medicines often do not show
any such homœopathic aggravation in the first hours, whilst they do so later
and during various hours for the first eight or ten days.
138
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
medicinal morbific agent must be employed for lack of a
more perfect one.
§ 163.
In this case we cannot indeed expect from this medicine
a complete, untroubled cure; for during its use some
symptoms appear which were not previously observable.
in the disease, accessory symptoms of the not perfectly
appropriate remedy. This does by no means prevent a
considerable part of the disease (the symptoms of the
disease that resemble those of the medicine) from being
eradicated by this medicine, thereby establishing a fair
commencement of the cure, but still this does not take
place without those accessory symptoms, which are,
however, always moderate when the dose of the medicine
is sufficiently minute.
§ 164.
The small number of homoeopathic symptoms present
in the best selected medicine is no obstacle to the cure
in cases where these few medicinal symptoms are chiefly of
an uncommon kind and such as are peculiarly distinctive
(characteristic) of the disease; the cure takes place under
such circumstances without any particular disturbance.
§ 165.
If, however, among the symptoms of the remedy
selected, there be none that accurately resemble the
distinctive (characteristic), peculiar, uncommon symptoms
of the case of disease, and if the remedy correspond to
the disease only in the general, vaguely described, in-
definite states (nausea, debility, headache, and so forth),
and if there be among the known medicines none more
homœopathically appropriate, in that case the physician
cannot promise himself any immediate favourable result
from the employment of this unhomoeopathic medicine.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
139
§ 166.
Such a case is, however, very rare, owing to the
increased number of medicines whose pure effects are now
known, and the bad effects resulting from it, when they do
occur, are diminished whenever a subsequent medicine, of
more accurate resemblance, can be selected.
§ 167.
Thus if there occur, during the use of this imperfectly
homœopathic remedy first employed, accessory symptoms
of some moment, then, in the case of acute diseases, we
do not allow this first dose to exhaust its action, nor
leave the patient to the full duration of the action of the
remedy, but we investigate afresh the morbid state in its
now altered condition, and add the remainder of the
original symptoms to those newly developed in tracing a
new picture of the disease.
$ 168.
We shall then be able much more readily to discover,
among the known medicines, an analogue to the morbid
state before us, a single dose of which, if it do not
entirely destroy the disease, will advance it considerably
on the way to be cured. And thus we go on, if even
this medicine be not quite sufficient to effect the restora-
tion of health, examining again and again the morbid
state that still remains, and selecting a homoeopathic
medicine as suitable as possible for it, until our object,
namely putting the patient in the possession of perfect
health, is accomplished.
§ 169.
If, on the first examination of a disease and the first
selection of a medicine, we should find that the totality of
the symptoms of the disease would not be effectually
covered by the disease elements of a single medicine-
owing to the insufficient number of known medicines,—
but that two medicines contend for the preference in
140
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
1
point of appropriateness, one of which is more homoeo-
pathically suitable for one part, the other for another
part of the symptoms of the disease, it is not advisable,
after the employment of the more suitable of the two
medicines, to administer the other without fresh examina-
tion, for the medicine that seemed to be the next best would
not, under the change of circumstances that has in the
meantime taken place, be suitable for the rest of the
symptoms that then remain; in which case, consequently,
a more appropriate homœopathic remedy must be selected
in place of the second medicine for the set of symptoms
as they appear on a new inspection.
§ 170.(a)
Hence in this as in every case where a change of the
morbid state has occurred, the remaining set of symptoms
now present must be inquired into, and (without pay-
ing any attention to the medicine which at first appeared
to be the next in point of suitableness) another homœo-
pathic medicine, as appropriate as possible to the new
state now before us, must be selected. If it should so
happen, as is not often the case, that the medicine which
at first appeared to be the next best seems still to be
well adapted for the morbid state that remains, so much
the more will it merit our confidence, and deserve to be
employed in preference to another.
§ 171,(a)
In non-venereal chronic diseases, those, therefore, that
arise from psora, we often require, in order to effect a
cure, to give several antipsoric remedies in succession,
every successive one being homœopathically chosen in
consonance with the group of symptoms remaining after
the expiry of the action of the previous remedy (which
may have been employed in a single dose or in several
successive doses).
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
141
§ 172.
A similar difficulty in the way of the cure occurs from
the symptoms of the disease being too few—a circumstance
that deserves our careful attention, for by its removal
almost all the difficulties that can lie in the way of this
most perfect of all possible modes of treatment (except
that its apparatus of known homoeopathic medicines is
still incomplete) are removed.
§ 173.
The only diseases that seem to have but few symptoms,
and on that account to be less amenable to cure, are those
which may be termed one-sided, because they display only
one or two principal symptoms which obscure almost all
the others. They belong chiefly to the class of chronic
diseases.
§ 174.
Their principal symptom may be either an internal
complaint (e.g. a headache of many years' duration, a
diarrhoea of long standing, an ancient cardialgia, &c.), or
it may be an affection more of an external kind. Dis-
eases of the latter character are generally distinguished
by the name of local maladies.
§ 175.
In one-sided diseases of the first kind it is often to be
attributed to the medical observer's want of discernment
that he does not fully discover the symptoms actually
present which would enable him to complete the sketch
of the portrait of the disease.
§ 176.
There are, however, still a few diseases, which, after
the most careful initial examination (§§ 84-98), present
but one or two severe, violent symptoms, while all the
others are but indistinctly perceptible.
142
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 177.
In order to meet most successfully such a case as this,
which is of very rare occurrence, we are in the first place
to select, guided by these few symptoms, the medicine
which in our judgment is the most homoeopathically
indicated.
§ 178.
It will, no doubt, sometimes happen that this medicine,
selected in strict observance of the homoeopathic law,
furnishes the similar artificial disease suited for the
annihilation of the malady present; and this is much more
likely to happen when these few morbid symptoms are
very striking, decided, uncommon and peculiarly dis-
tinctive (characteristic).
§ 179.
More frequently, however, the medicine first chosen in
such a case will be only partially, that is to say, not
exactly suitable, as there was no considerable number of
symptoms to guide to an accurate selection.
§ 180.
In this case the medicine, which has been chosen as well
as was possible, but which, for the reason above stated,
is only imperfectly homoeopathic, will, in its action upon
the disease that is only partially analogous to it—just as
in the case mentioned above (§ 162, et seq.), where the
limited number of homoeopathic remedies renders the
selection imperfect-produce accessory symptoms, and
several phenomena from its own array of symptoms are
mixed up with the patient's state of health, which are,
however, at the same time, symptoms of the disease itself,
although they may have been hitherto never or very rarely
perceived; some symptoms which the patient had never
previously experienced appear, or others he had only felt
indistinctly become more pronounced.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
143
§ 181.
Let it not be objected that the accessory phenomena and
new symptoms of this disease that now appear should
be laid to the account of the medicament just employed.
They owe their origin to it¹ certainly, but they are
always only symptoms of such a nature as this disease
was itself capable of producing in this organism, and
which were summoned forth and induced to make their
appearance by the medicine given, owing to its power to
cause similar symptoms. In a word, we have to regard
the whole collection of symptoms now perceptible as
belonging to the disease itself, as the actual existing con-
dition, and to direct our further treatment accordingly.
.
$182.
Thus the imperfect selection of the medicament, which
was in this case almost inevitable owing to the too limited
number of the symptoms present, serves to complete the
display of the symptoms of the disease, and in this way
facilitates the discovery of a second, more accurately
suitable, homœopathic medicine.
§ 183.
Whenever, therefore, the dose of the first medicine
ceases to have a beneficial effect (if the newly developed
symptoms do not, by reason of their gravity, demand
more speedy aid-which, however, from the minuteness
of the dose of homoeopathic medicine, and in very chronic
diseases, is excessively rare), a new examination of the
disease must be instituted, the status morbi as it now is
must be noted down, and a second homoeopathic remedy
selected in accordance with it, which shall exactly suit
the present state, and one which shall be all the more
appropriate can then be found, as the group of symptoms
has become larger and more complete."
2
1 When they were not caused by an important error in regimen, a violent
emotion, or a tumultuous revolution in the organism, such as the occurrence
or cessation of the menses, conception, childbirth, and so forth.
2 In cases where the patient (which, however, happens excessively seldom in
144
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
$ 184.
In like manner, after each new dose of medicine has
exhausted its action, the state of the disease that still
remains is to be noted anew with respect to its re-
maining symptoms, and another homoeopathic remedy
sought for, as suitable as possible for the group of sym-
ptoms now observed, and so on until the recovery is
complete.
·
$ 185.
Among the one-sided diseases an important place is
occupied by the so-called local maladies, by which term
is signified those changes and ailments that appear on
the external parts of the body. Till now the idea pre-
valent in the schools was that these parts were alone
morbidly affected, and that the rest of the body did not
participate in the disease-a theoretical, absurd doctrine,
which has led to the most disastrous medical treatment.
§ 186.
Those so-called local maladies which have been produced
a short time previously, solely by an external lesion, still
appear at first sight to deserve the name of local diseases.
But then the lesion must be very trivial, and in that case it
would be of no great moment. For in the case of injuries
accruing to the body from without, if they be at all
severe, the whole living organism sympathises; there
occur fever, &c. The treatment of such diseases is rele-
gated to surgery; but this is right only in so far as
the affected parts require mechanical aid, whereby the
external obstacles to the cure, which can only be ex-
pected to take place by the agency of the vital force,
may be removed by mechanical means, e. g. by the re-
chronic, but not infrequently in acute, diseases) feels very ill, although his
symptoms are very indistinct, so that this state may be attributed more to the
benumbed state of the nerves, which does not permit the patient's pains and
sufferings to be distinctly perceived, this torpor of the internal sensibility is
removed by opium, and in its secondary action the symptoms of the disease
become distinctly apparent. (a)
ኒ
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
145
duction of dislocations, by bandages to bring together the
lips of wounds, by the extraction of foreign bodies that
have penetrated into the living parts, by making an
opening into a cavity of the body in order to remove an
irritating substance or to procure the evacuation of
effusions or collections of fluids, by bringing into apposi-
tion the broken extremities of a fractured bone and re-
taining them in exact contact by an appropriate bandage,
&c. But when in such injuries the whole living organism
requires, as it always does, active dynamic aid to put it
in a position to accomplish the work of healing, e. g.
when the violent fever resulting from extensive contu-
sions, lacerated muscles, tendons and blood-vessels re-
quires to be removed by medicine given internally, or
when the external pain of scalded or burnt parts needs
to be homœopathically subdued, then the services of the
dynamic physician and his helpful homoeopathy come into
requisition.
§ 187.(a)
But those affections, alterations and ailments appear-
ing on the external parts, that do not arise from any
external injury or that have only some slight external
wound for their immediate exciting cause, are produced
in quite another manner; their source lies in some in-
ternal malady. To consider them as mere local affections,
and at the same time to treat them only, or almost only,
as it were surgically, with topical applications-as the old
school have done from the remotest ages-is as absurd
as it is pernicious in its results.
§ 188.
These affections were considered to be merely topical,
and were therefore called local diseases, as if they were
maladies exclusively limited to those parts, wherein the
organism took little or no part, or affections of these par-
ticular visible parts, of which the rest of the living
organism, so to speak, knew nothing.¹
1
¹ One of the many great and pernicious blunders of the old school.
10
146
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
$ 189.
And yet very little reflection will suffice to convince us
that no external malady (not occasioned by some impor-
tant injury from without) can arise, persist or even grow
worse without some internal cause, without the co-operation
of the whole organism, which must consequently be in a
diseased state. It could not make its appearance at all
without the consent of the whole of the rest of the health,
and without the participation of the rest of the living
whole (of the vital force that pervades all the other sen-
sitive and irritable parts of the organism);(a) indeed, it is
impossible to conceive its production without the instru-
mentality of the whole (deranged) life; so intimately are
all parts of the organism connected together to form an
indivisible whole in sensations and functions. No eruption
on the lips, no whitlow can occur without previous and
simultaneous internal ill-health.
$ 190.
All true medical treatment of a disease on the external
parts of the body that has occurred from little or no
injury from without must, therefore, be directed against
the whole, must effect the annihilation and cure of the
general malady by means of internal remedies, if it is
wished that the treatment should be judicious, sure, effi-
cacious and radical.
§ 191.
This is confirmed in the most unambiguous manner by
experience, which shows in all cases that every powerful
internal medicine immediately after its ingestion causes
important changes in the general health of such a
patient, and particularly in the affected external parts
(which the ordinary medical school regards as quite
isolated), even in a so-called local disease of the most
external parts of the body, and the change it produces
is most salutary, being the restoration to health of the
entire body, along with the disappearance of the external
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
147
affection (without the aid of any external remedy), pro-
vided the internal remedy directed towards the whole
state was suitably chosen in a homoeopathic sense.
§ 192.
This is best effected when, in the investigation of the
case of disease, along with the exact character of the
local affection, all the changes, sufferings and symptoms
observable in the patient's health, and which may have
been previously noticed when no medicines had been
used, are taken in conjunction to form a complete picture
of the disease, before searching among the medicines,
whose peculiar pathogenetic effects are known, for a
remedy corresponding to the totality of the symptoms, so
that the selection may be truly homœopathic.
$193.
By means of this medicine, employed only internally
(and, if the disease be but of recent origin, often by the
very first dose of it), the general morbid state of the body
is removed along with the local affection, and the latter
is cured at the same time as the former, proving that the
local affection depended solely on a disease of the rest of
the body, and should only be regarded as an inseparable
part of the whole, as one of the most considerable and
striking symptoms of the whole disease.
§ 194. (a)
It is not useful, either in acute local diseases of recent
origin or in local affections that have already existed a
long time, to rub in or apply externally to the spot an
external remedy, even though it be the specific and,
when used internally, salutary by reason of its homoeo-
pathicity, even although it should be at the same time
administered internally; for the acute topical affections
e. g. inflammations of individual parts, erysipelas, &c.),
which have not been caused by external injury of propor-
tionate violence, but by dynamic or internal causes, yield
most surely to internal remedies homœopathically adapted
148
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
to the perceptible state of the health present in the
exterior and interior, selected from the general store of
proved medicines,¹ and generally without any other aid;
but if these diseases do not yield to them completely, and
if there still remain in the affected spot and in the whole
state, notwithstanding good regimen, a relic of disease
which the vital force is not competent to restore to
the normal state, then the acute disease was (as not in-
frequently happens) a product of psora which had hitherto
remained latent in the interior, but has now burst forth
and is on the point of developing into a palpable chronic
disease.
§ 195.
In order to effect a radical cure in such cases, which
are by no means rare, after the acute state has pretty
well subsided, an appropriate antipsoric treatment (as is
taught in my work on Chronic Diseases) must then be
directed against the symptoms that still remain and the
morbid state of health to which the patient was previously
subject. In chronic local maladies that are not obviously
venereal, the antipsoric internal treatment is, moreover,
alone requisite.
§ 196.
It might, indeed, seem (a) as though the cure of such
diseases would be hastened by employing the medicinal
substance which is known to be truly homoeopathic to the
totality of the symptoms, not only internally but also
externally, (a) because the action of a medicine applied to
the seat of the local affection might effect a more rapid
change in it.
§ 197.
This treatment, however, is quite inadmissible, not
only for the local symptoms arising from the miasm of
psora, but also and especially for those originating in the
miasm of syphilis or sycosis, for the simultaneous local
1 As, for instance, aconite, rhus, belladonna, mercury, &c.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
149
application, along with the internal employment, of the
remedy in diseases whose chief symptom is a constant local
affection, has this great disadvantage, that, by such a
topical application, this chief symptom (local affection)
will usually be annihilated sooner than the internal dis-
ease, and we shall now be deceived by the semblance of
a perfect cure; or at least it will be difficult, and in some
cases impossible, to determine, from the premature dis-
appearance of the local symptom, if the general disease
is destroyed by the simultaneous employment of the
internal medicine.
§ 198.(a)
The mere topical employment of medicines, that are
powerful for cure when given internally, to the local
symptoms of chronic miasmatic diseases is for the same
reason quite inadmissible; for if the local affection of the
chronic disease be only removed locally and in a one-
sided manner, the internal treatment indispensable for
the complete restoration of the health remains in dubious
obscurity; the chief symptom (the local affection) is
gone, and there remain only the other, less distinguish-
able symptoms, which are less constant and less persistent
than the local affection, and frequently not sufficiently
peculiar and too slightly characteristic to display, after
that, a picture of the disease in clear and perfect outlines.
§ 199.
2
If the remedy perfectly homœopathic to the disease
had not yet been discovered at the time when the local
symptoms were destroyed by a corrosive or desiccative
external remedy or by the knife, then the case becomes
much more difficult on account of the too indefinite (un-
characteristic) and inconstant appearance of the remaining
symptoms; for what might have contributed most to
determine the selection of the most suitable remedy, and
¹ Recent itch eruption, chancre, condyloma.
2 As was the case before my time with the remedies for the condylomatous
disease (and the antipsoric medicines).
150
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
its internal employment until the disease should have
been completely annihilated, namely, the external prin-
cipal symptom, has been removed from our observation.
§ 200.
Had it still been present to guide the internal treat-
ment, the homeopathic remedy for the whole disease
might have been discovered, and had that been found,
the persistence of the local affection during its internal
employment would have shown that the cure was not yet
completed; but were it cured on its seat, this would be
a convincing proof that the disease was completely era-
dicated, and the desired recovery from the entire disease
was fully accomplished-an inestimable, indispensable
advantage.
§ 201.(a)
It is evident that man's vital force, when encumbered
with a chronic disease which it is unable to overcome by
its own powers, adopts the plan of developing a local
malady on some external part, solely for this object, that
by making and keeping in a diseased state this part
which is not indispensable to human life, it may thereby
silence the internal disease, which otherwise threatens to
destroy the vital organs (and to deprive the patient of
life), and that it may thereby, so to speak, transfer the
internal disease to the vicarious local affection and, as it
were, draw it thither. The presence of the local affection
thus silences, for a time, the internal disease, though
without being able either to cure it or to diminish it
materially. The local affection, however, is never any-
thing else than a part of the general disease, but a part
of it increased all in one direction by the organic vital
force, and transferred to a less dangerous (external) part
1
'The issues of the old-school practitioners do something similar; as artifi-
cial ulcers on external parts, they silence some internal chronic diseases, but
only for a very short time, without being able to cure them; but, on the other
hand, they weaken and destroy the general health much more than is done by
most of the metastases effected by the instinctive vital force, (a)
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
151
But
of the body, in order to allay the internal ailment.
(as has been said) by this local symptom that silences the
internal disease, so far from anything being gained by
the vital force towards diminishing or curing the whole
malady, the internal disease, on the contrary, continues,
in spite of it, gradually to increase and Nature is con-
strained to enlarge and aggravate the local symptom
always more and more, in order that it may still suffice
as a substitute for the increased internal disease and may
still keep it under. Old ulcers on the legs get worse as
long as the internal psora is uncured, the chancre enlarges
as long as the internal syphilis remains uncured, just
as the general internal disease continues to increase as
time goes on.
$202.
If the old-school physician should now destroy the
local symptom by the topical application of external
remedies, under the belief that he thereby cures the
whole disease, Nature makes up for its loss by rousing
the internal malady and the other symptoms that pre-
viously existed in a latent state side by side with the
local affection; that is to say, she increases the internal
disease. When this occurs it is usual to say, though in-
correctly, that the local affection has been driven back
into the system or upon the nerves by the external
remedies.
§ 203.
Every external treatment of such local symptoms, the
object of which is to remove them from the surface of the
body, whilst the internal miasmatic disease is left uncured,
as, for instance, driving off the skin the psoric eruption
by all sorts of ointments, burning away the chancre by
caustics and destroying the condylomata on their seat by
the knife, the ligature or the actual cautery; this perni-
cious external mode of treatment, hitherto so universally
practised, has been the most prolific source of all the in-
numerable named or unnamed chronic maladies under
152
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
which mankind groans; it is one of the most criminal
procedures the medical world can be guilty of, and yet it
has hitherto been the one generally adopted, and taught
from the professorial chairs as the only one.¹ (@)
§ 204.
If we deduct all chronic affections, ailments and dis-
eases that depend on a persistent unhealthy mode of
living, as also those innumerable medicinal maladies (v.
§ 74) caused by the irrational, persistent, harassing and
pernicious treatment of diseases often only of trivial cha-
racter by physicians of the old school, all the remainder,
without exception, result from the development of these
three chronic miasms, internal syphilis, internal sycosis,
but chiefly and in infinitely greater proportion, internal
psora, each of which was already in possession of the
whole organism, and had penetrated it in all directions
before the appearance of the primary, vicarious local
symptom of each of them (in the case of psora the
scabious eruption, in syphilis the chancre or the bubo,
and in sycosis the condylomata) that prevented their
outburst; and these chronic miasmatic diseases, if de-
prived of their local symptom, are inevitably destined by
mighty Nature sooner or later to become developed and
to burst forth, and thereby propagate all the nameless
misery, the incredible number of chronic diseases which
have plagued mankind for hundreds and thousands of
years, none of which would so frequently have come into
existence had physicians striven in a rational manner to
cure radically and to extinguish in the organism these
three miasms by the internal homoeopathic medicines
suited for each of them, without employing topical reme-
dies for their external symptoms.
1 For any medicines that might at the same time be given internally served
but to aggravate the malady, as these remedies possessed no specific power of
curing the whole disease, but assailed the organism, weakened it and inflicted
on it, in addition, other chronic medicinal diseases.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
153
$ 205.
The homoeopathic physician never treats one of these
primary symptoms of chronic miasms, nor yet one of their
secondary affections that result from their further deve-
lopment, by local remedies (neither by those external
agents that act dynamically,' nor yet by those that act
mechanically), but he cures, in cases where the one or
the other appears, only the great miasm on which they
depend, whereupon its primary, as also its secondary
symptoms disappear spontaneously; but as this was not
the mode pursued by the old-school practitioners who
preceded him in the treatment of the case, the homoeo-
pathic physician generally, alas! finds that the primary
symptoms² have already been destroyed by them by
means of external remedies, and that he has now to do
more with the secondary ones, i. e. the affections resulting
from the breaking forth and development of these inherent
miasms, but especially with the chronic diseases evolved
from internal psora, the internal treatment of which, as
far as a single physician can elucidate it by many years of
reflection, observation and experience, I have endeavoured
1 I cannot therefore advise, for instance, the local extirpation of the
so-called cancer of the lips or face (the product of highly developed psora ?)
by means of the arsenical remedy of Frère Cosme, not only because it is
excessively painful and often fails, but more for this reason, because, if this
dynamic remedy should indeed succeed in freeing the affected part of the
body from the malignant ulcer locally, the basic malady is thereby not
diminished in the slightest, the preserving vital force is therefore necessitated
to transfer the field of operation of the great internal malady to some more
important part (as it does in every case of metaschematism), and the conse-
quence is blindness, deafness, insanity, suffocative asthma, dropsy, apoplexy,
&c. But this ambiguous local liberation of the part from the malignant ulcer
by the topical arsenical remedy only succeeds, after all, in those cases where the
ulcer has not yet attained any great size, and when the vital force is still very
energetic; but it is just in such a state of things that the complete internal
cure of the whole original disease is also still practicable.
The result is the same when cancer of the face or breast is removed by the
knife alone and when encysted tumours are enucleated; something worse
ensues, or at any rate death is hastened. This has been the case times with-
out number, but the old school still goes blindly on in the same way in every
new case, with the same disastrous results.
2 Itch eruption, chancre (bubo), condylomata.
154
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
to point out in my work on Chronic Diseases, to which I
must refer the reader.
§ 206.
Before commencing the treatment of a chronic disease,
it is necessary to make the most careful investigation¹
as to whether the patient has had a venereal infection (or
an infection with condylomatous gonorrhoea); for then the
treatment must be directed towards this alone, when only
the signs of syphilis (or of the rarer condylomatous dis-
ease) are present, but this disease is very seldom met
with alone nowadays. If such infection have previously
occurred, this must also be borne in mind in the treat-
ment of those cases in which psora is present, because in
them the latter is complicated with the former, as is
always the case when the symptoms are not those of
pure syphilis; for when the physician thinks he has a
case of old venereal disease before him, he has always, or
almost always, to treat a syphilitic affection accompanied
mostly by (complicated with) psora, for the internal itch
dyscrasia (the psora) is far the most frequent (most
certain) fundamental cause of chronic diseases, either
united (complicated) with syphilis (or with sycosis), if
the latter infections have avowedly occurred; or, as is
much more frequently the case, psora is the sole funda-
mental cause of all other chronic maladies, whatever
names they may bear, which are, moreover, so often
bungled, increased and disfigured to a monstrous extent
by allopathic unskilfulness.
¹ In investigations of this nature we must not allow ourselves to be deceived
by the assertions of the patients or their friends, who frequently assign as
the cause of chronic, even of the severest and most inveterate diseases, either
a cold caught (a thorough wetting, drinking cold water after being heated)
many years ago, or a former fright, a sprain, a vexation (sometimes even a
bewitchment), &c. These causes are much too insignificant to develop a
chronic disease in a healthy body, to keep it up for years, and to aggravate it
year by year, as is the case with all chronic diseases from developed psora.
Causes of a much more important character than these remembered noxious
influences must lie at the root of the initiation and progress of a serious,
obstinate disease of long standing; the assigned causes could only rouse
into activity the latent chronic miasm.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
155
§ 207.
When the above information has been gained, it still
remains for the homœopathic physician to ascertain what
kinds of allopathic treatment had up to that date been
adopted for the chronic disease, what perturbing medicines.
had been chiefly and most frequently employed, also what
mineral baths had been used and what effects these had
produced, in order to understand in some measure the
degeneration of the disease from its original state, and,
where possible, to correct in part these pernicious arti-
ficial operations, or to enable him to avoid the employ-
ment of medicines that have already been improperly
used.
§ 208.
The age of the patient, his mode of living and diet,
his occupation, his domestic position, his social relations
and so forth, must next be taken into consideration, in
order to ascertain whether these things have tended to
increase his malady, or in how far they may favour or
hinder the treatment. In like manner the state of his
disposition and mind must be attended to, to learn
whether that presents any obstacle to the treatment, or
requires to be directed, encouraged or modified.
§ 209.
After this is done, the physician should endeavour in
repeated conversations with the patient to trace the
picture of his disease as completely as possible, according
to the directions given above, in order to be able to
elucidate the most striking and peculiar (characteristic)
symptoms, in accordance with which he selects the first
antipsoric or other remedy having the greatest sympto-
matic resemblance, for the commencement of the treatment,
and so forth.
156
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
2
$ 210.(a)
Of psoric origin are almost all those diseases that I
have above termed one-sided, which appear to be more
difficult to cure in consequence of this one-sidedness, all
their other morbid symptoms disappearing, as it were,
before the single, great, prominent symptom. Of this
character are what are termed mental diseases. They
do not, however, constitute a class of disease sharply
separated from all others, since in all other so-called
corporeal diseases the condition of the disposition and
mind is always altered; and in all cases of disease we
are called on to cure the state of the patient's disposition
is to be particularly noted, along with the totality of the
symptoms, if we would trace an accurate picture of the
disease, in order to be able therefrom to treat it homœo-
pathically with success.
$211.
This holds good to such an extent, that the state of
the disposition of the patient often chiefly determines the
selection of the homoeopathic remedy, as being a decidedly
characteristic symptom which can least of all remain con-
cealed from the accurately observing physician.
1 How often, for instance, do we not meet with a mild, soft disposition in
patients who have for years been afflicted with the most painful diseases, so
that the physician feels constrained to esteem and compassionate the sufferer!
But if he subdue the disease and restore the patient to health-as is frequently
done in homoeopathic practice-he is often astonished and horrified at the
frightful alteration in his disposition. He often witnesses the occurrence of
ingratitude, cruelty, refined malice and propensities most disgraceful and
degrading to humanity, which were precisely the qualities possessed by the
patient before he grew ill.
Those who were patient when well often become obstinate. violent, hasty, or
even intolerant and capricious, or impatient or desponding when ill; those
formerly chaste and modest often become lascivious and shameless. A clear-
headed person not infrequently becomes obtuse of intellect, while one
ordinarily weak-minded becomes more prudent and thoughtful; and a man
slow to make up his mind sometimes acquires great presence of mind and
quickness of resolve, &c.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
157
§ 212.
The Creator of therapeutic agents has also had par-
ticular regard to this main feature of all diseases, the
altered state of the disposition and mind, for there is
no powerful medicinal substance in the world which does
not very notably alter the state of the disposition and
mind in the healthy individual who tests it, and every
medicine does so in a different manner.
§ 213.
We shall, therefore, never be able to cure conformably
to nature—that is to say, homoeopathically-if we do not,
in every case of disease, even in such as are acute, observe,
along with the other symptoms, those relating to the
changes in the state of the mind and disposition, and if
we do not select, for the patient's relief, from among the
medicines a disease-force which, in addition to the simi-
larity of its other symptoms to those of the disease, is
also capable of producing a similar state of the disposi-
tion and mind.¹
§ 214.
The instructions I have to give relative to the cure of
mental diseases may be confined to a very few remarks,
as they are to be cured in the same way as all other
diseases, namely, by a remedy which shows, by the
symptoms it causes in the body and mind of a healthy
individual, a power of producing a morbid state as similar
as possible to the case of disease before us, and in no
other way can they be cured.
§ 215.
Almost all the so-called mental and emotional diseases
are nothing more than corporeal diseases in which the
1 Thus aconite will seldom or never effect either a rapid or permanent cure
in a patient of a quiet, calm, equable disposition; and just as little will nux
vomica be serviceable where the disposition is mild and phlegmatic, pulsatilla
where it is happy, gay and obstinate, or ignatia where it is imperturbable and
disposed neither to be frightened nor vexed.
158
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
symptom of derangement of the mind and disposition
peculiar to each of them is increased, whilst the corporeal
symptoms decline (more or less rapidly), till it at length
attains the most striking one-sidedness, almost as though
it were a local disease in the invisible subtile organ of
the mind or disposition.
$ 216.
The cases are not rare in which a so-called corporeal
disease that threatens to be fatal—a suppuration of the
lungs, or the deterioration of some other important viscus,
or some other disease of acute character, e. g. in childbed,
&c.—becomes transformed into insanity, into a kind of
melancholia or into mania by a rapid increase of the psy-
chical symptoms that were previously present, whereupon
the corporeal symptoms lose all their danger; these latter
improve almost to perfect health, or rather they decrease to
such a degree that their obscured presence can only be
detected by the observation of a physician gifted with per-
severance and penetration. In this manner they become
transformed into a one-sided and, as it were, a local
disease, in which the symptom of the mental disturbance,
which was at first but slight, increases so as to be the
chief symptom, and in a great measure occupies the place
of the other (corporeal) symptoms, whose intensity it
subdues in a palliative manner, so that, in short, the
affections of the grosser corporeal organs become, as it
were, transferred and conducted to the almost spiritual
mental and emotional organs, which the anatomist has
never yet and never will reach with his scalpel.
§ 217.
In these diseases we must be very careful to make
ourselves acquainted with the whole of the phenomena,
both those belonging to the corporeal symptoms, and
also, and indeed particularly, those appertaining to the
accurate apprehension of the precise character of the
chief symptom, of the peculiar and always predominating
state of the mind and disposition, in order to discover,
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
159
for the purpose of extinguishing the entire disease, among
the remedies whose pure effects are known, a homoeo-
pathic medicinal pathogenetic force-that is to say, a
remedy which in its list of symptoms displays, with the
greatest possible similarity, not only the corporeal morbid
symptoms present in the case of disease before us, but
also especially this mental and emotional state.
§ 218.
To this collection of symptoms belongs in the first
place the accurate description of all the phenomena of
the previous so-called corporeal disease, before it degene-
rated into a one-sided increase of the psychical symptom,
and became a disease of the mind and disposition. This
may be learned from the report of the patient's friends.
§ 219.
A comparison of these previous symptoms of the cor-
poreal disease with the traces of them that still remain,
though they have become less perceptible (but which
even now sometimes become prominent, when a lucid
interval and a transient alleviation of the psychical disease
occurs), will serve to prove them to be still present,
though obscured.
§ 220.
By adding to this the state of the mind and disposition
accurately observed by the patient's friends and by the
physician himself, we have thus constructed the complete
picture of the disease, for which, in order to effect the
homœopathic cure of the disease, a medicine capable of
producing strikingly similar symptoms, and especially an
analogous disorder of the mind, must be sought for among
the antipsoric remedies, if the psychical disease have
already lasted some time.
§ 221.(a)
If, however, insanity or mania (caused by fright,
vexation, the abuse of spirituous liquors, &c.) have
160
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
suddenly broken out as an acute disease in the patient's
ordinary calm state, although it almost always arises
from internal psora, like a flame bursting forth from it,
yet when it occurs in this acute manner it should not be
immediately treated with antipsorics, but in the first place
with remedies indicated for it out of the other class of
proved medicaments (e. g. aconite, belladonna, stramo-
nium, hyoscyamus, mercury, &c.) in highly potentized,
minute, homœopathic doses, in order to subdue it so far
that the psora shall for the time revert to its former
latent state, wherein the patient appears as if quite well.
§ 222.
But such a patient, who has recovered from an acute
mental or emotional disease by the use of these non-anti-
psoric medicines, should never be regarded as cured; on
the contrary, no time should be lost in attempting to free
him completely,¹ by means of a prolonged antipsoric
treatment, from the chronic miasm of the psora, which, it
is true, has now become once more latent but is quite
ready to break out anew; if this be done, there is no
fear of another similar attack, if he attend faithfully to
the diet and regimen prescribed for him.
§ 223.
But if the antipsoric treatment be omitted, then we
may almost assuredly expect, from a much slighter cause
¹ It very rarely happens that a mental or emotional disease of long stand-
ing ceases spontaneously (for the internal dyscrasia transfers itself again
to the grosser corporeal organs); such are the few cases met with now and
then, where a former inmate of a madhouse has been dismissed apparently
recovered. Hitherto, moreover, all madhouses have continued to be choke-
full, so that the multitude of other insane persons who seek for admission
into such institutions could scarcely find room in them unless some of the insane
in the house died. Not one is ever really and permanently cured in them! A
convincing proof, among many others, of the complete nullity of the non-healing
art hitherto practised, which has been ridiculously honoured by allopathic osten-
tation with the title of rational medicine. How often, on the other hand, has
not the true healing art, genuine, pure homoeopathy, been able to restore such
unfortunate beings to the possession of their mental and corporeal health,
and to give them back again to their delighted friends and to the world! («)
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
161
than brought on the first attack of the insanity, the speedy
occurrence of a new and more lasting and severe fit,
during which the psora usually develops itself completely,
and passes into either a periodic or continued mental
derangement, which is then more difficult to be cured by
antipsorics.
§ 224.
If the mental disease be not quite developed, and if it
be still somewhat doubtful whether it really arose from a
corporeal affection, or did not rather result from faults of
education, bad practices, corrupt morals, neglect of the
mind, superstition or ignorance; the mode of deciding
this point will be, that if it proceed from one or other of
the latter causes it will diminish and be improved by
sensible friendly exhortations, consolatory arguments,
serious representations and sensible advice; whereas a real
moral or mental malady, depending on bodily disease, would
be speedily aggravated by such a course, the melancholic
would become still more dejected, querulous, inconsolable
and reserved, the spiteful maniac would thereby become
still more exasperated, and the chattering fool would
become manifestly more foolish.¹
§ 225.
There are, however, as has just been stated, certainly
a few emotional diseases which have not merely been deve-
loped into that form out of corporeal diseases, but which,
in an inverse manner, the body being but slightly indis-
posed, originate and are kept up by emotional causes, such
as continued anxiety, worry, vexation, wrongs and the
frequent occurrence of great fear and fright. This kind
of emotional diseases in time destroys the corporeal health,
often to a great degree.
¹ It would seem as though the mind, in these cases, felt with uneasiness and
grief the truth of these rational representations and acted upon the body as
if it wished to restore the lost harmony, but that the body, by means of its
disease, reacted upon the organs of the mind and disposition and put them in
still greater disorder by a fresh transference of its sufferings on to them.
11
162
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 226.
It is only such emotional diseases as these, which were
first engendered and subsequently kept up by the mind
itself, that, while they are yet recent and before they have
made very great inroads on the corporeal state, may, by
means of psychical remedies, such as a display of confidence,
friendly exhortations, sensible advice, and often by a well-
disguised deception, be rapidly changed into a healthy
state of the mind (and with appropriate diet and regimen,
seemingly into a healthy state of the body also).
§ 227.
But the fundamental cause in these cases also is a
psoric miasm, which was only not yet quite near its full
development, and for security's sake, the seemingly cured
patient should be subjected to a radical, antipsoric treat-
ment, in order that he may not again, as might easily
occur, fall into a similar state of mental disease.
§ 228.(a)
In mental and emotional diseases resulting from
corporeal maladies, which can only be cured by homoeo-
pathic antipsoric medicine conjoined with carefully regu-
lated mode of life, an appropriate psychical behaviour
towards the patient on the part of those about him and
of the physician must be scrupulously observed, by way
of an auxiliary mental regimen. To furious mania we
must oppose calm intrepidity and cool, firm resolution-
to doleful, querulous lamentation, a mute display of com-
miseration in looks and gestures-to senseless chattering,
a silence not wholly inattentive to disgusting and
abominable conduct and to conversation of a similar
character, total inattention. We must merely endeavour
to prevent the destruction and injury of surrounding
objects, without reproaching the patient for his acts, and
everything must be arranged in such a way that the
necessity for any corporal punishments and tortures¹
K
1
¹ It is impossible not to marvel at the hard-heartedness and indiscretion of
C
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
163
whatever may be avoided. This is so much the more
easily effected, because in the administration of the medi-
cine the only circumstance in which the employment of
coercion could be justified-in the homoeopathic system
the small doses of the appropriate medicine never offend
the taste, and may consequently be given to the patient
without his knowledge in his drink, so that all compulsion
is unnecessary.
$ 229.
On the other hand, contradiction, eager explanations,
rude corrections and invectives, as also weak, timorous
yielding, are quite out of place with such patients; they
are equally pernicious modes of treating mental and
emotional maladies. But such patients are most of all
exasperated and their complaint aggravated by contumely,
fraud, and deceptions that they can detect. The physician
and keeper must always pretend to believe them to be
possessed of reason.
All kinds of external disturbing influences on their
senses and disposition should be if possible removed:
there are no amusements for their clouded spirit, no
salutary distractions, no means of instruction, no sooth-
ing effects from conversation, books or other things for
the soul that pines or frets in the chains of the diseased
body, no invigoration for it, but the cure; it is only when
the bodily health is changed for the better that tran-
quillity and comfort again beam upon their mind.
Jus
the medical men in many establishments for patients of this kind, not only in
England, but also in Germany, who, without attempting to discover the true
and only efficacious mode of curing such diseases, which is by homœopathic
medicinal (antipsoric) means, content themselves with torturing these most
pitiable of all human beings with the most violent blows and other painful
torments. By this unconscientious and revolting procedure they debase
themselves beneath the level of the turnkeys in a house of correction, for the
latter inflict such chastisements as the duty devolving on their office, and on
criminals only, whilst the former appear, from a humiliating consciousness of
their uselessness as physicians, only to vent their spite at the apparent incura-
bility of mental diseases in harshness towards the pitiable, innocent sufferers,
for they are too ignorant to be of any use and too indolent to adopt a judi-
cious mode of treatment.
164
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 230.
If the antipsoric remedies selected for each particular
case of mental or emotional disease (there are incredibly
numerous varieties of them) be quite homoeopathically
suited for the faithfully traced picture of the morbid state,
which, if there be a sufficient number of this kind of medi-
cines known in respect of their pure effects, is ascertained
by an indefatigable search for the most appropriate homoeo-
pathic remedy all the more easily, as the emotional and
mental state, constituting the principal symptom of such
a patient, is so unmistakably perceptible, then the
smallest possible doses are often sufficient to effect the
most striking improvement in no very long time, which
could not be brought about by physicking the patient to
death with the largest oft-repeated doses of all other
unsuitable (allopathic) medicines. Indeed, I can con-
fidently assert, from great experience, that the vast
superiority of the homoeopathic system over all other
conceivable methods of treatment is nowhere displayed
in a more triumphant light than in mental and emotional
diseases of long standing, which originally sprang from
corporeal maladies or were developed simultaneously with
them.
§ 231.(a)
The intermittent diseases deserve a special considera-
tion, as well those that recur at certain periods-like the
great number of intermittent fevers, and the apparently
non-febrile affections that recur at intervals like inter-
mittent fevers-as also those in which certain morbid
states alternate at uncertain intervals with morbid states
of a different kind.
§ 232.(a)
These latter, alternating diseases, are also very
numerous, but all belong to the class of chronic dis-
1
1 Two or three states may alternate with one another. Thus, for instance,
in the case of double alternating diseases, certain pains may occur per-
sistently in the legs, &c. immediately on the disappearance of a kind of
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
165
eases; they are generally a manifestation of developed
psora alone, sometimes, but seldom, complicated with a
syphilitic miasm, and therefore in the former case may be
cured by antipsoric medicines; in the latter, however, in
alternation with antisyphilitics as taught in my work on
the Chronic Diseases.
$233.
The typical intermittent diseases are those where a
morbid state of unvarying character returns at a tolerably
fixed period, whilst the patient is apparently in good
health, and takes its departure at an equally fixed period;
this is observed in those apparently non-febrile morbid
states that come and go in a periodical manner (at
certain times), as well as in those of a febrile character,
to wit, the numerous varieties of intermittent fevers.
§ 234.(a)
Those apparently non-febrile, typical, periodically re-
curring morbid states just alluded to observed in one
single patient at a time (they do not usually appear
sporadically or epidemically) always belong to the
chronic diseases, mostly to those that are purely psoric,
are but seldom complicated with syphilis, and are suc-
cessfully treated by the same means; yet it is some-
ophthalmia, which latter again appears as soon as the pain in the limbs has
gone off for the time-convulsions and spasms may alternate immediately
with any other affection of the body or some part of it—in a case of threefold
alternating states in a common indisposition, periods of apparent increase of
health and unusual exaltation of the corporeal and mental powers (extrava-
gant gaiety, extraordinary activity of the body, excess of comfortable feeling,
inordinate appetite, &c.) may occur, after which, and quite unexpectedly,
gloomy, melancholy humour, intolerable hypochondriacal derangement of the
disposition, with disorder of several of the vital operations, the digestion,
sleep, &c., appear, which again, and just as suddenly, give place to the habitual
moderate ill-health; and so also several and very various alternating states.
When the new state makes its appearance, there is often no perceptible trace
of the former one. In other cases only slight traces of the former alternat-
ing state remain when the new one occurs; few of the symptoms of the first
state remain on the appearance and during the continuance of the second.
Sometimes the morbid alternating states are quite of opposite natures, as, for
instance, melancholy periodically alternating with gay insanity or frenzy.(")
A
166
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
times necessary to employ as an intermediate remedy
a small dose of a potentized solution of cinchona bark,
in order to extinguish completely their intermittent type.
§ 235,(a)
With regard to the intermittent fevers,¹ that prevail
sporadically or epidemically (not those endemically
located in marshy districts), we often find every paroxysm
¹ The pathology hitherto in vogue, which is still in the stage of irrational
infancy, recognises but one single intermittent fever, which it likewise termed
ague, and admits of no varieties but such as are constituted by the different
intervals at which the paroxysms recur, quotidian, tertian, quartan, &c. But
there are much more important differences among them than what are marked
by the periods of their recurrence; there are innumerable varieties of these
fevers, some of which cannot even be denominated ague, as their fits consist
solely of heat; others, again, are characterised by cold alone, with or with-
out subsequent perspiration; yet others which exhibit general coldness of
the surface, with a sensation of heat on the patient's part, or whilst the body
feels externally hot, the patient feels cold; others, again, in which one
paroxysm consists entirely of a rigor or simple chilliness, followed by an
interval of health, while the next consists of heat alone, followed or not by
perspiration; others, again, in which the heat comes first, and the cold stage
not till that is gone ; others, again, wherein after a cold and hot stage apyrexia
ensues, and then perspiration comes on like a second fit, often many hours
subsequently; others, again, in which no perspiration at all comes on, and
yet others in which the whole attack consists of perspiration alone, without
any cold or hot stage, or in which the perspiration is only present during the
heat; and there are innumerable other differences, especially in regard to the
accessory symptoms, such as headache of a peculiar kind, bad taste in the
mouth, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, want of or excessive thirst, peculiar pains
in the body or limbs, disturbed sleep, deliria, alterations of temper, spasms,
&c., before, during or after the cold stage, before, during or after the hot
stage, before, during or after the sweating stage, and countless other varieties.
All these are manifestly intermittent fevers of very different kinds, each of
which, as might naturally be supposed, requires a special (homœopathic) treat-
ment. It must be confessed that they can almost all be suppressed (as is
often done) by enormous doses of bark and of its pharmaceutical preparation,
the sulphate of quinine; that is to say, their periodical recurrence (their
typus) may be extinguished by it, although often only after increased and
frequently repeated doses, but the patients who suffered from intermittent
fevers for which cinchona bark is not suitable, as is the case with all those
epidemic intermittent fevers that traverse whole countries and even moun-
tainous districts, are not restored to health by the extinction of the typus; on
the contrary, they now remain ill in another manner, and worse, often much
worse, than before; they are affected by peculiar, chronic bark dyscrasias,
and can scarcely be restored to health even by a prolonged treatment by the
true system of medicine—and yet that is what is called curing, forsooth!
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
167
likewise composed of two opposite alternating states (cold,
heat-heat, cold), more frequently still of three (cold,
heat, sweat). Therefore the remedy selected for them
from the general class of proved (common, not antipsoric)
medicines must either (and remedies of this sort are the
surest) be able likewise to produce in the healthy body
two (or all three) similar alternating states, or else must
correspond by similarity of symptoms, in the most homoeo-
pathic manner possible, to the strongest, best marked,
and most peculiar alternating state (either to the cold
stage, or to the hot stage, or to the sweating stage, each
with its accessory symptoms, according as the one or
other alternating state is the strongest and most peculiar);
but the symptoms of the patient's health during the
intervals when he is free from fever must be the chief
guide to the most appropriate homeopathic remedy.¹
$236.
The most appropriate and efficacious time for adminis-
tering the medicine in these cases is immediately or very
soon after the termination of the paroxysm, as soon as
the patient has in some degree recovered from its effects ;
it has then time to effect all the changes in the organism
requisite for the restoration of health, without any great
disturbance or violent commotion; whereas the action of
a medicine, be it ever so specifically appropriate, if given
immediately before the paroxysm, coincides with the
natural recurrence of the disease and causes such a
reaction in the organism, such a violent contention, that
an attack of that nature produces at the very least a great
loss of strength, if it do not endanger life.2 But if the
.
¹ Dr. von Bönninghausen, who has rendered more services to our beneficent
system of medicine than any other of my disciples, has best elucidated this
subject, which demands so much care, and has facilitated the choice of the
efficient remedy for the various epidemics of fever, in his work entitled
Versuch einer homöopathischen Therapie der Wechselfieber, 1833, Münster
bei Regensberg.
2 This is observed in the fatal cases, by no means rare, in which a moderate
dose of opium given during the cold stage quickly deprived the patients of
life,
168
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
medicine be given immediately after the termination of
the fit, that is to say, at the period when the apyretic
interval has commenced and a long time before there are
any preparations for the next paroxysm, then the vital
force of the organism is in the best possible condition to
allow itself to be quietly altered by the remedy, and thus
restored to the healthy state.
.
§ 237.
But if the stage of apyrexia be very short, as happens
in some very bad fevers, or if it be disturbed by some of
the after sufferings of the previous paroxysm, the dose of
the homoeopathic medicine should be administered when
the perspiration begins to abate, or the other subsequent
phenomena of the expiring paroxysm begin to diminish.
§ 238.
It is only when the suitable medicine has with a
single dose destroyed several fits and manifest health
has ensued, but after some time indications of a new
paroxysm appear, only then can and must the same
medicine be given again, provided always the totality of
the symptoms is still the same. This recurrence of the
same fever after an interval of health is, however, only
possible when the noxious influence that first excited the
intermittent fever still continues to act upon the convales-
cent, as happens in marshy districts; in which case a
permanent cure is often only possible by the removal of
this exciting cause (as, for instance, a residence in a
mountainous country if the case was one of marsh inter-
mittent fever).
.
§ 239.
As almost every medicine causes in its pure action a
special, peculiar fever, and even a kind of intermittent
fever with its alternating states, differing from all other
fevers that are caused by other medicines, homœopathic
remedies may be found in the extensive domain of medi-
cines for all the numerous varieties of natural intermittent
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
169
fevers and, for a great many of such fevers, even in the
moderate collection of medicines already proved on the
healthy individual.
§ 240,(a)
But if the remedy found to be the homoeopathic specific
for a prevalent epidemic of intermittent fever do not effect
a perfect cure in some one or other patient, if it be not
the influence of a marshy district that prevents the cure,
it must always be the psoric miasm in the background,
in which case antipsoric medicines must be employed until
complete relief is obtained.
§ 241.(a)
Epidemies of intermittent fever, in situations where
none are endemic, are of the nature of chronic diseases,
composed of single acute paroxysms; each single epidemy
is of a peculiar, uniform character common to all the
individuals attacked, and when this character is found in
the totality of the symptoms common to all, it guides us
to the discovery of the homeopathic (specific) remedy
suitable for all the cases, which is almost universally
serviceable in those patients who enjoyed tolerable health
before the occurrence of the epidemy, that is to say, who
were not chronic sufferers from developed psora.
§ 242.
If, however, in such an epidemic intermittent fever the
first paroxysms have been left uncured, or if the patients
have been weakened by improper allopathic treatment;
then the inherent psora that exists, alas! in so many
persons, although in a latent state, becomes developed,
takes on the type of intermittent fever, and to all appear-
ance continues to play the part of the epidemic inter-
mittent fever, so that the medicine, which would have
been useful in the first paroxysms (rarely an antipsoric),
is now no longer suitable and cannot be of any service.
We have now to do with a psoric intermittent fever only,
and this will generally be subdued by minute and rarely
170
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
repeated doses of sulphur or hepar sulphuris in a high
potency.
§ 243,(a)
In those often very pernicious intermittent fevers
which attack a single person, not residing in a marshy
district, we must also at first, as in the case of acute dis-
eases generally, which they resemble in respect to their
psoric origin, employ for some days, to render what service
it may, a homoeopathic remedy selected for the special
case from the other class of proved (not antipsoric)
medicines; but if, notwithstanding this procedure, the
recovery is deferred, we know that we have to do with
psora on the point of its development, and that in this
case antipsoric medicines alone can effect a radical cure.
§ 244.
The intermittent fevers endemic in marshy districts
and tracts of country frequently exposed to inundations,
give a great deal of work to physicians of the old school,
and yet a healthy man may in his youth become habitu-
ated even to marshy districts and remain in good health,
provided he preserves a faultless regimen and his system
is not lowered by want, fatigue or pernicious passions.
The intermittent fevers endemic there would at the most
only attack him on his first arrival; but one or two very
small doses of a highly potentized solution of cinchona
bark would, conjointly with the well-regulated mode of
living just alluded to, speedily free him from the disease.
But persons who, while taking sufficient corporeal exercise
and pursuing a healthy system of intellectual occupations
and bodily regimen, cannot be cured of marsh intermittent
fever by one or a few of such small doses of cinchona-
in such persons psora, striving to develop itself, always
lies at the root of their malady, and their intermittent
fever cannot be cured in the marshy district without
antipsoric treatment.¹ It sometimes happens that when
M
-
1 Large, oft-repeated doses of cinchona bark, as also concentrated cinchonic
remedies, such as the sulphate of quinine, have certainly the power of freeing
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
171
these patients exchange, without delay, the marshy
district for one that is dry and mountainous, recovery
apparently ensues, (the fever leaves them) if they be not
yet deeply sunk in disease, that is to say, if the psora was
not completely developed in them and can consequently
return to its latent state; but they will never regain
perfect health without antipsoric treatment.
§ 245,(@)
Having thus seen what attention should, in the homœo-
pathic treatment, be paid to the chief varieties of dis-
eases and to the peculiar circumstances connected with
them, we now pass on to what we have to say respecting
the remedies and the mode of employing them, together with
the diet and regimen to be observed during their use.
Every perceptibly progressive and strikingly increasing
amelioration in a transient (acute) or persistent (chronic)
disease, is a condition which, as long as it lasts, com-
pletely precludes every repetition of the administration of
any medicine whatsoever, because all the good the medi-
cine taken continues to effect is now hastening towards
its completion. Every new dose of any medicine what-
soever, even of the one last administered, that has
hitherto shown itself to be salutary, would in this case
disturb the work of amelioration.
§ 246.(a)
On the other hand, the slowly progressive amelioration
consequent on a very minute dose, whose selection has
been accurately homoeopathic, when it has met with no
hindrance to the duration of its action, sometimes accom-
plishes all the good the remedy in question is capable
from its nature of performing in a given case, in periods
of forty, fifty or a hundred days. This is, however, but
rarely the case; and besides, it must be a matter of great
importance to the physician as well as to the patient that,
such patients from the periodical fits of the marsh ague; but those thus
deceived into the belief that they are cured remain diseased in another way
without antipsoric aid.
172
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
were it possible, this period shouid be diminished to one
half, one quarter, and even still less, so that a much more
rapid cure might be obtained. And this may be very
happily effected, as recent and oft-repeated observations
have shown, under three conditions: firstly, if the medi-
cine selected with the utmost care was perfectly homoeo-
pathic; secondly, if it was given in the minutest dose, so
as to produce the least possible excitation of the vital
force, and yet sufficient to effect the necessary change in
it; and thirdly, if this minutest yet powerful dose of the
best selected medicine be repeated at suitable intervals,¹
4
In the former editions of the Organon I have advised that a single dose
of a well-selected homoeopathic medicine should always be allowed first fully
to expend its action before a new medicine is given or the same one repeated
—a doctrine which was the result of the positive experience that neither by
a larger dose of the remedy, which may have been well chosen (as has been
again recently proposed, but which would be very like a retrograde move-
ment), nor, what amounts to the same thing, by several small doses of it
given in quick succession, can the greatest possible good be effected in the
treatment of diseases, more especially of chronic ones; and the reason of this
is, that by such a procedure the vital force does not quietly adapt itself to the
transition from the natural disease to the similar medicinal disease, but is
usually so violently excited and disturbed by a larger dose, or by smaller
doses of even a homeopathically chosen remedy given rapidly one after the
other, that in most cases its reaction will be anything but salutary and will do
more harm than good. As long as no more efficacious mode of proceeding
than that then taught by me was discovered, the safe philanthropic maxim of
si non juvat, modo ne noceat, rendered it imperative for the homœopathic
practitioner, for whom the weal of his fellow-creatures was the highest object,
to allow, as a general rule in diseases, but a single dose at a time, and that
the very smallest, of the carefully selected remedy to act upon the patient
and, moreover, to exhaust its action. The very smallest, I repeat, for it
holds good and will continue to hold good as a homoeopathic therapeutic
maxim not to be refuted by any experience in the world, that the best dose
of the properly selected remedy is always the very smallest one in one of the
high potencies (X), as well for chronic as for acute diseases-a truth that is
the inestimable property of pure homœopathy and which, as long as allopathy
(and the new mongrel sect, whose treatment is a mixture of allopathic and
homœopathic processes, is not much better) continues to gnaw like a cancer
at the life of sick human beings, and to ruin them by large and ever larger
doses of drugs, will keep pure homoeopathy separated from these spurious arts
as by an impassable gulf.
On the other hand, however, practice shows us that though a single one of
these small doses may suffice to accomplish almost all that it was possible for
this medicine to do under the circumstances, in some, and especially in slight
cases of disease, particularly in those of young children and very delicate and
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
173
which experience shall have pronounced to be the best
adapted for accelerating the cure to the utmost extent,
yet without the vital force, which it is sought to influence
to the production of a similar medicinal disease, being
excitable adults, yet that in many, indeed in most cases, not only of very
chronic diseases that have already made great progress and have frequently
been aggravated by a previous employment of inappropriate medicines, but
also of serious acute diseases, one such smallest dose of medicine in our
highly potentized dynamization is evidently insufficient to effect all the cura-
tive action that might be expected from that medicine, for it may unquestion-
ably be requisite to administer several of them, in order that the vital force
may be pathogenetically altered by them to such a degree and its salutary
reaction stimulated to such a height, as to enable it to completely extinguish,
by its reaction, the whole of that portion of the original disease that it lay in
the power of the well-selected homœopathic remedy to eradicate; the best
chosen medicine in such a small dose, given but once, might certainly be of
some service, but would not be nearly sufficient.
But the careful homœopathic physician would not venture soon to repeat
the same dose of the same remedy again and again, as from such a practice
he has frequently experienced no advantage, but most frequently, on close
observation, decided disadvantage. He generally witnessed aggravation, from
even the smallest dose of the most suitable remedy, which he had given one
day, when repeated the next day and the next.
Now, in cases where he was convinced of the correctness of his choice of
the homœopathic medicine, in order to obtain more benefit for the patient
than he was able to get hitherto from prescribing a single small dose, the
idea often naturally struck him to increase the dose, since, for the reasons
given above, one single dose only should be given; and, for instance, in place
of giving a single very minute globule moistened with the medicine in the
highest dynamization, to administer six, seven or eight of them at once,
and even a half or a whole drop. But the result was almost always less
favourable than it should have been; it was often actually unfavourable,
often even very bad—an injury that, in a patient so treated, it is difficult to
repair.
The difficulty in this case is not solved by giving, instead, lower dynamiza-
tions of the remedy in a large dose.
Thus, increasing the strength of the single doses of the homœopathic medi-
cine with the view of effecting the degree of pathogenetic excitation of the
vital force necessary to produce satisfactory salutary reaction, fails altogether,
as experience teaches, to accomplish the desired object. The vital force is
thereby too violently and too suddenly assailed and excited to allow it time to
exercise a gradual, equable, salutary reaction, to adapt itself to the modifica-
cation effected in it; hence it strives to repel, as if it were an enemy, the
medicine attacking it in excessive force, by means of vomiting, diarrhoea,
fever, perspiration, and so forth, and thus in a great measure it diverts
and renders nugatory the aim of the incautious physician,-little or no
good towards curing the disease will be thereby accomplished; on the
contrary, the patient will be thereby perceptibly weakened and, for a long
174
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
able to feel itself excited and roused to adverse reac-
tions.
time, the administration of even the smallest dose of the same remedy must
not be thought of if we would not wish it to injure the patient.
But it happens, moreover, that a number of the smallest doses given for
the same object in quick succession accumulate in the organism into a kind of
excessively large dose, with (a few rare cases excepted) similar bad results;
in this case the vital force, not being able to recover itself betwixt every dose,
though it be but small, becomes oppressed and overwhelmed, and thus, being
incapable of reacting in a salutary manner, it is necessitated passively to
allow involuntarily the continuance of the over-strong medicinal disease that
has thus been forced upon it, just in the same manner as we may every day
observe from the allopathic abuse of large cumulative doses of one and the
same medicine, to the lasting injury of the patient.
Now, therefore, in order, whilst avoiding the erroneous method I have here
pointed out, to attain the desired object more certainly than hitherto, and to
administer the medicine selected in such a manner that it must exercise all
its efficacy without injury to the patient, that it may effect all the good it is
capable of performing in a given case of disease, I have latterly adopted
a peculiar method.
I perceived that, in order to discover this true middle path, we must be
guided as well by the nature of the different medicinal substances, as also by
the corporeal constitution of the patient and the magnitude of his disease, so
that—to give an example from the use of sulphur in chronic (psoric) diseases
-the smallest dose of it (tinct. sulph. Xº) can seldom be repeated with advan-
tage, even in robust patients and in fully developed psora, oftener than every
seven days, a period of time which must be proportionally lengthened when
we have to treat weaker and more excitable patients of this kind; in such
cases we would do well to give such a dose only every nine, twelve, or fourteen
days, and continue to repeat the medicine until it ceases to be of service.
We thus find (to abide by the instance of sulphur) that in psoric diseases
seldom fewer than four, often, however, six, eight and even ten such doses
(tinct. sulph. Xº) are required to be successively administered at these intervals
for the complete annihilation of the whole portion of the chronic disease that
is eradicable by sulphur-provided always there had been no previous allo-
pathic abuse of sulphur in the case. Thus even a (primary) scabious eruption
of recent origin, though it may have spread all over the body, may be perfectly
cured, in persons who are not too weakly, by a dose of tinct. sulph. Xº given
every seven days, in the course of from ten to twelve weeks (accordingly with
ten or twelve such globules), so that it will seldom be necessary to aid the
cure with a few doses of carb. veg. Xº (also given at the rate of one dose per
week), without the slightest external treatment besides frequent changes of
linen and good regimen.
-
When for other serious chronic diseases also we may consider it requisite,
as far as we can calculate, to give eight, nine or ten doses of tinct. sulph.
(at Xº), it is yet more expedient in such cases, instead of giving them in
uninterrupted succession, to interpose after every, or every second or third
dose, a dose of another medicine, which in this case is next in point of
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
175
$247.
Under these conditions, the smallest doses of the best
selected homoeopathic medicine may be repeated with
homœopathic suitableness to sulphur (usually hep. sulph.), and to allow this
likewise to act for eight, nine, twelve or fourteen days before again com-
mencing a course of three doses of sulphur.
But it not infrequently happens that the vital force refuses to permit
several doses of sulphur, even though they may be essential for the cure of
the chronic malady and are given at the intervals mentioned above, to act
quietly on itself; this refusal it reveals by some, though moderate, sulphur
symptoms, which it allows to appear in the patient during the treatment. In
such cases it is sometimes advisable to administer a small dose of nux vom. Xº,
allowing it to act for eight or ten days, in order to dispose the system again
to allow succeeding doses of the sulphur to act quietly and effectually upon it.
In those cases for which it is adapted, puls. Xº is preferable.
But the vital force shows the greatest resistance to the salutary action upon
itself of the strongly indicated sulphur, and even exhibits manifest aggravation
of the chronic disease, though the sulphur be given in the very smallest dose,
though only a globule of the size of a mustard seed moistened with tinct.
sulph. Xº be smelt, if the sulphur have formerly (it may be years since) been
improperly given allopathically in large doses. This is one lamentable cir-
cumstance that renders the best medical treatment of chronic diseases almost
impossible, among the many that the ordinary bungling treatment of chronic
diseases by the old school would leave us nothing to do but to deplore, were
there not some mode of getting over the difficulty.
In such cases we have only to let the patient smell a single time strongly
at a globule the size of a mustard seed moistened with mercur. metall. X,
and allow this olfaction to act for about nine days, in order to make the vital
force again disposed to permit the sulphur (at least the olfaction of tinct.
sulph. Xº) to exercise a beneficial influence on itself—a discovery for which
we are indebted to Dr. Griesselich, of Carlsruhe.
Of the other antipsoric remedies (except perhaps phosph. X) it is necessary
to administer fewer doses at similar intervals (of sepia and sil. at longer
intervals, without any intermediate remedy, where they are homœopathically
indicated), in order to cure all that is curable in a given case by the remedy
indicated. Hep, sulph. calc. X can rarely be taken or smelt at shorter
intervals than every fourteen or fifteen days.
Before making such a repetition of the dose the physician must of course
be convinced that his selection is truly homoeopathic.
In acute diseases, the time for repeating the fitly chosen medicine is regu-
lated by the greater or less rapidity of the course of the disease we have to
combat, so that, when necessary, it should be repeated after twenty-four,
sixteen, twelve, eight, four and even fewer hours, if the medicine continue to
prove beneficial without interruption-without producing new symptoms,-
but is not sufficiently rapid in its action for the excessively quick and
dangerous course of the acute disease, so that in cholera, the most speedily
fatal disease we know, at the commencement of the disease, one or two drops
176
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
the best, often with incredible results, at intervals of
fourteen, twelve, ten, eight, seven days, and, where
rapidity is requisite, in chronic diseases resembling cases
of acute disease, at still shorter intervals, but in acute
diseases at very much shorter periods-every twenty-
four, twelve, eight, four hours, in the very acutest
every hour, up to as often as every five minutes,-in
every case in proportion to the more or less rapid course
of the disease and of the action of the medicine employed,
as is more distinctly explained in the last note.
-
§ 248.
The dose of the same medicine may be repeated
several times according to circumstances, but only so
long as until either recovery ensues, or the same remedy
ceases to do good and the rest of the disease, presenting a
different group of symptoms, demands a different homoeo-
pathic medicine.
§ 249.
Every medicine prescribed for a case of disease which,
in the course of its action, produces new and troublesome
of a mild solution of camphor must be given every five minutes, in order to
procure speedy and certain relief, and in the more developed cholera, doses of
cuprum, veratrum, phosphorus, &c. (Xº), frequently require to be given every
two or three hours, and also arsenic, carbo vegetabilis, &c., at similar short
intervals.
In the treatment of so-called typhus fevers and other continued fevers, the
repetition, in smallest doses, of the medicine that proves itself of service,
must be regulated by the above directions.
In pure syphilitic diseases I have generally found a single dose of metallic
mercury (X) sufficient; and yet not infrequently two or three such doses
were requisite, given at intervals of six or eight days, when the slightest com-
plication with psora was perceptible.
In cases where some particular medicine is urgently indicated, but where
the patient is very excitable and weak, a more efficient and certain procedure
than giving more substantial, though ever so small doses of the highly poten-
tized medicine, is a single olfaction of a dry globule the size of a mustard
seed that has been impregnated with the same medicine; this is effected by
holding the mouth of the phial that contains it first in one and then (if it is
wished to give a stronger dose) in the other nostril and making a momentary
inspiration; the action of this medicine, thus administered, lasts just as long
as that of the medicine that has been taken in substance, hence even this
olfaction ought not be be repeated at shorter intervals. («)
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
177
1
symptoms not appertaining to the disease to be cured, is
not capable of effecting real improvement, and cannot
be considered as homoeopathically selected; it must,
therefore, either, if the aggravation be considerable, be
first partially neutralised as soon as possible by an antidote
before giving the next remedy chosen more accurately
according to similarity of action; or if the troublesome
symptoms be not very violent, the next remedy must be
given immediately, in order to take the place of the im-
properly selected one. (a)
§ 250.
When, to the observant practitioner who accurately
investigates the state of the disease, it is evident, in
urgent cases after the lapse of only six, eight or twelve
hours, that he has made a bad selection in the medi-
cine last given, in that the patient's state is growing
perceptibly, however slightly, worse from hour to hour,
by the occurrence of new symptoms and sufferings, it is
not only allowable for him, but it is his duty to remedy
his mistake, by the selection and administration of a
homoeopathic medicine not merely tolerably suitable, but
the most appropriate possible for the existing state of the
disease (§ 167).(@)
§ 251.(a)
There are some medicines (e. g. ignatia, also bryonia
and rhus, and sometimes belladonna) whose power of
altering man's health consists chiefly in alternating
actions-a kind of primary-action symptoms that are in
1 As all experience shows that the dose of the specifically suited homœo-
pathic medicine can scarcely be prepared too small to effect perceptible
amelioration in the disease for which it is appropriate (§§ 275-279), we should
act injudiciously and hurtfully were we, when no improvement, or some,
though it be even slight, aggravation ensues, to repeat or even to increase the
dose of the same medicine, as is done in the old system, under the delusion
that it was not efficacious on account of its small quantity (its too small dose).
Every aggravation by the production of new symptoms—when nothing unto-
ward has occurred in the mental or physical regimen-invariably proves
unsuitableness on the part of the medicine formerly given in the case of disease
before us, but never indicates that the dose has been to weak.
12
178
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
part opposed to each other. Should the practitioner find,
on prescribing one of these, selected on strict homoeo-
pathic principles, that no improvement follows, he will in
most cases soon effect his object by giving (in acute dis-
eases, even within a few hours) a fresh and equally small
dose of the same medicine.¹
§ 252.(a)
But should we find, during the employment of the
other medicines in chronic (psoric) diseases, that the best
selected homoeopathic (antipsoric) medicine in the suitable
(minutest) dose does not effect an improvement, this is a
sure sign that the cause that keeps up the disease still
persists, and that there is some circumstance in the mode
of life of the patient or in the situation in which he is
placed, that must be removed in order that a permanent
cure may ensue.
§ 253.
Among the signs that, in all diseases, especially in
such as are of an acute nature, inform us of a slight
commencement of amelioration or aggravation that is not
perceptible to every one, the state of mind and the whole
demeanour of the patient are the most certain and in-
structive. In the case of ever so slight an improvement
we observe a greater degree of comfort, increased calm-
ness and freedom of the mind, higher spirits-a kind of
return of the natural state. In the case of ever so small
a commencement of aggravation we have, on the contrary,
the exact opposite of this: a constrained, helpless, pitiable
state of the disposition, of the mind, of the whole de-
meanour, and of all gestures, postures and actions, which
may be easily perceived on close observation, but cannot
be described in words.2
1 As I have more particularly described in the introduction to "Ignatia” (in
the first volume of the Materia Medica Pura).
2 The signs of improvement in the disposition and mind, however, may be
expected only soon after the medicine has been taken when the dose has
been sufficiently minute (i. e. as small as possible); an unnecessarily larger
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
179
$254.
The other new or increased symptoms, or, on the con-
trary, the diminution of the original ones without any
addition of new ones, will soon dispel all doubts from
the mind of the attentively observing and investigating
practitioner with regard to the aggravation or ameliora-
tion; though there are among patients persons who are
either incapable of giving an account of this amelioration
or aggravation, or are unwilling to confess it.
§ 255,(a)
But even with such individuals we may convince our-
selves on this point by going with them through all the
symptoms enumerated in our notes of the disease one by
one, and finding that they complain of no new ususual
symptoms in addition to these, and that none of the old
symptoms are worse. If this be the case, and if an im-
provement in the disposition and mind have already been
observed, the medicine must have effected positive diminu-
tion of the disease, or, if sufficient time have not yet
elapsed for this, it will soon effect it. Now, supposing
the remedy is perfectly appropriate, if the improvement
delay too long in making its appearance, this depends
either on some error of conduct on the part of the patient,
or on the homoeopathic aggravation produced by the
medicine lasting too long (§ 157), consequently on the
dose not being small enough.
dose of even the most suitable homœopathic medicine acts too violently, and
at first produces too great and too lasting a disturbance of the mind and
disposition, to allow us soon to perceive the improvement in them. I must
here observe that this so essential rule is chiefly transgressed by presumptuous
tyros in homœopathy, and by physicians who are converted to homœopathy
from the ranks of the old school. From old prejudices these persons abhor
the smallest doses of the lowest (a) dilutions of medicine in such cases, and
hence they fail to experience the great advantages and blessings of that mode of
proceeding which a thousandfold experience has shown to be the most salutary;
they cannot effect all that homeopathy is capable of doing, and hence they
have no claim to be considered its adherents.
180
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 256.
On the other hand, if the patient mention the occur-
rence of some fresh accidents and symptoms of importance
-signs that the medicine chosen has not been strictly
homœopathic—even though he should good-naturedly
assure us that he feels better, we must not believe this
assurance, but regard his state as aggravated, as it will
soon be perfectly apparent it is.(«)
§ 257.
The true («) physician will take care to avoid making
favourite remedies of medicines, the employment of
which he has, by chance, perhaps found often useful, and
which he has had opportunities of using with good effect.
If he do so, some remedies of rarer use, which would
have been more homœopathically suitable, consequently
more serviceable, will often be neglected.
§ 258.
The true practitioner, moreover, will not in his practice
with mistrustful weakness neglect the employment of
those remedies that he may now and then have employed
with bad effects, owing to an erroneous selection (from his
own fault, therefore), or avoid them for other (false)
reasons, as that they were unhomoeopathic for the case of
disease before him; he must bear in mind the truth, that
of medicinal agents that one alone invariably deserves
the preference in every case of disease which corresponds
most accurately by similarity to the totality of the
characteristic symptoms, and that no paltry prejudices
should interfere with this serious choice.
§ 259.
Considering the minuteness of the doses necessary and
proper in homoeopathic treatment, we can easily under-
stand that during the treatment everything must be
removed from the diet and regimen which can have any
medicinal action, in order that the small dose may not
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
181
be overwhelmed and extinguished or disturbed by any
foreign medicinal irritant.¹
§ 260.
Hence the careful investigation into such obstacles to
cure is so much the more necessary in the case of patients
affected by chronic diseases, as their diseases are usually
aggravated by such noxious influences and other disease-
causing errors in the diet and regimen, which often
pass unnoticed.2
§ 261.
The most appropriate regimen during the employment
of medicine in chronic diseases consists in the removal
of such obstacles to recovery, and in supplying where
necessary the reverse: innocent moral and intellectual
recreation, active exercise in the open air in almost all
1 The softest tones of a distant flute that in the still midnight hours would
inspire a tender heart with exalted feelings and dissolve it in religious ecstasy,
are inaudible and powerless amid discordant cries and the noise of day.
2 Coffee; fine Chinese and other herb teas; beer prepared with medicinal
vegetable substances unsuitable for the patient's state; so-called fine liqueurs
made with medicinal spices; all kinds of punch; spiced chocolate; odorous
waters and perfumes of many kinds; strong-scented flowers in the apart
ment; tooth powders and essences and perfumed sachets compounded of
drugs; highly spiced dishes and sauces; spiced cakes and ices; crude
medicinal vegetables for soups; dishes of herbs, roots and stalks of plants
possessing medicinal qualities; old cheese, and meats that are in a state of
decomposition, or that possess mediciual properties (as the flesh and fat of
pork, ducks and geese, or veal that is too young and sour viands), ought just
as certainly to be kept from patients as they should avoid all excesses in food,
and in the use of sugar and salt, as also spirituous drinks, heated rooms,
woollen clothing next the skin (which should be exchanged in warm weather,
first for cotton, then for linen garments), a sedentary life in close apartments,
or the frequent indulgence in mere passive exercise (such as riding, driving
or swinging), prolonged suckling, taking a long siesta in a recumbent
posture (in bed), sitting up long at night, uncleanliness, unnatural debauchery,
enervation by reading obscene books, subjects of anger, grief or vexation, a
passion for play, over-exertion of mind or body, dwelling in marshy districts,
damp rooms, penurious living, &c. All these things must be as far as
possible avoided or removed, in order that the cure may not be obstructed or
rendered impossible. Some of my disciples seem needlessly to increase the
difficulties of the patient's dietary by forbidding the use of many more, toler-
ably indifferent things, which is not to be commended.
182
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
kinds of weather (daily walks, slight manual labour),
suitable, nutritious, unmedicinal food and drink, &c.
§ 262.
In acute diseases, on the other hand-except in cases
of mental alienation-the subtile, unerring internal sense
of the awakened life-preserving faculty determines so
clearly and precisely, that the physician only requires to
counsel the friends and attendants to put no obstacles in
the way of this voice of nature by refusing anything the
patient urgently desires in the way of food, or by trying
to persuade him to partake of anything injurious.
§ 263.
The desire of the patient affected by an acute disease
with regard to food and drink is certainly chiefly for
things that give palliative relief; they are, however, not
strictly speaking of a medicinal character, and merely
supply a sort of want. The slight hindrances that the
gratification of this desire, within moderate bounds, could
oppose to the radical removal of the disease¹ will be
amply counteracted and overcome by the power of the
homoeopathically suited medicine and the vital force set
free by it, as also by the refreshment that follows from
taking what has been so ardently longed for. In like
manner, in acute diseases the temperature of the room
and the heat or coolness of the bed-coverings must also
be arranged entirely in conformity with the patient's
wish. He must be kept free from all over-exertion of
mind and exciting emotions. (@)
$ 264.
The true physician must be provided with genuine
medicines of unimpaired strength, so that he may be able
1 This is, however, rare. Thus, for instance, in pure inflammatory diseases,
where aconite is so indispensable, whose action would be destroyed by partaking
of vegetable acids, the desire of the patient is almost always for pure cold
water only.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
183
to rely upon their therapeutic powers; he must be able,
himself, to judge of their genuineness.
§ 265.
It should be a matter of conscience with him to be
thoroughly convinced in every case that the patient
always takes the right medicine.
}
§ 266,(a)
Substances belonging to the animal and vegetable
kingdoms possess their medicinal qualities most per-
fectly in their raw state.¹
¹ All crude animal and vegetable substances have a greater or less amount
of medicinal power, and are capable of altering man's health, each in its own
peculiar way. Those plants and animals used by the most enlightened nations
as food have this advantage over all others, that they contain a larger amount
of nutritious constituents; and they differ from the others in this, that their
medicinal powers in their raw state are either not very great in themselves, or
are diminished by the culinary processes they are subjected to in cooking for
domestic use, by the expression of the pernicious juice (like the cassava root
of South America), by fermentation (of the rye-flour in the dough for making
bread, sour-crout prepared without vinegar and pickled gherkins), by smoking
and by the action of heat (in boiling, stewing, toasting, roasting, baking),
whereby the medicinal parts of many of these substances are in part de-
stroyed and dissipated. By the addition of salt (pickling) and vinegar
(sauces, salads) animal and vegetable substances certainly lose much of their
injurious medicinal qualities, but other disadvantages result from these
additions.
But even those plants that possess most medicinal power lose that in part
or completely by such processes. By perfect desiccation all the roots of the
various kinds of iris, of the horseradish, of the different species of arum and
of the peonies lose almost all their medicinal virtue. The juice of the most
virulent plants often becomes an inert, pitch-like mass, from the heat em-
ployed in preparing the ordinary extracts. By merely standing a long time,
the expressed juice of the most deadly plants becomes quite powerless; even
at a moderate atmospheric temperature it rapidly takes on the vinous fermen-
tation (and thereby loses much of its medicinal power), and immediately
thereafter the acetous and putrid fermentation, whereby it is deprived of all
its peculiar medicinal properties; the fecula that is then deposited, if well
washed, is quite innocuous, like ordinary starch. By the transudation that
takes place when a number of green plants are laid one above the other, the
greatest part of their medicinal properties is lost.
184
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 267.
We gain possession of the powers of indigenous plants
and of such as may be had in a fresh state in the most
complete and certain manner by mixing their freshly
expressed juice immediately with equal parts of spirits of
wine of a strength sufficient to burn in a lamp. After
this has stood a day and a night in a close stoppered
bottle and deposited the fibrinous and albuminous
matters, the clear superincumbent fluid is then to be
decanted off for medicinal use.¹
1 All fermentation of the
vegetable juice will be at once checked by the spirits of
wine mixed with it and rendered impossible for the
future, and the entire medicinal power of the vegetable
juice is thus retained (perfect and uninjured) for ever by
keeping the preparation in well-corked bottles and ex-
cluded from the sun's light.2
"O
1 Buchholz (Taschenb. f. Scheidek. u. Apoth a. d. J., 1815, Weimar, Abth.
1, vi) assures his readers (and his reviewer in the Leipziger Literaturzeitung,
1816, No. 82, does not contradict him) that for this excellent mode of pre-
paring medicines we have to thank the campaign in Russia, whence it was (in
1812) imported into Germany. According to the noble practice of Germans
to be unjust towards their own countrymen, he conceals the fact that this
discovery and those directions, which he quotes in my very words from the
first edition of the Organon of Rational Medicine, § 230 and note, proceed
from me, and that I first published them to the world two years before the
Russian campaign (the Organon appeared in 1810). Some folks would rather
assign the origin of a discovery to the deserts of Asia than to a German
to whom the honour belongs. O tempora! O mores!
Alcohol has certainly been sometimes before this used for mixing with
vegetable juices, e. g. to preserve them some time before making extracts of
them, but never with the view of administering them in this form.
2 Although equal parts of alcohol and freshly expressed juice are usually the
most suitable proportion for effecting the deposition of the fibrinous and
albuminous matters, yet for plants that contain much thick mucus (e.g. Sym-
phytum officinale, Viola tricolor, &c.) or an excess of albumen (e.g. Ethusa
cynapium, Solanum nigrum, &c.), a double proportion of alcohol is generally
required for this object. Plants that are very deficient in juice, as oleander,
Buxus, Taxus, Ledum, Sabina, &c., must first be pounded up alone into a moist,
fine mass, and then stirred up with a double quantity of alcohol, in order that
the juice may combine with it, and being thus extracted by the alcohol, may
be pressed out; these latter may also when dried be brought with milk-sugar
to the millionfold trituration, and then be further diluted and potentized
(v. § 271).
ORGANON OF MEDIcine.
185
§ 268.
The other exotic plants, barks, seeds and roots that
cannot be obtained in the fresh state the sensible prac-
titioner will never take in the pulverised form on trust,
but will first convince himself of their genuineness in
their crude, entire state before making any medicinal
employment of them.1(a)
§ 269.(a)
The homœopathic system of medicine develops for its
use, to a hitherto unheard-of degree, the spirit-like medi-
cinal powers of the crude substances by means of a
process peculiar to it and which has hitherto never been
tried, whereby only they all become penetratingly effica-
cious and remedial, even those that in the crude state
give no evidence of the slightest medicinal power on the
human body.
1 In order to preserve them in the form of powder, a precaution is requisite
that has hitherto been usually neglected by druggists, and hence powders
even of well-dried animal and vegetable substances could not be preserved
uninjured even in well-corked bottles. The entire crude vegetable sub-
stances, though perfectly dry, yet contain, as an indispensable condition of
the cohesion of their texture, a certain quantity of moisture, which does not
indeed prevent the unpulverised drug from remaining in as dry a state as is
requisite to preserve it from corruption, but which is quite too much for the
finely pulverised state. The animal or vegetable substance which in its entire
state was perfectly dry, furnishes therefore, when finely pulverised, a some-
what moist powder, which, without rapidly becoming spoilt and mouldy, can
yet not be preserved in corked bottles if not previously freed from this
superfluous moisture. This is best effected by spreading out the powder in a
flat tin saucer with a raised edge, which floats in a vessel full of boiling water
(i.e. a water-bath), and, by means of stirring it about, drying it to such a
degree that all the small atoms of it (no longer stick together in lumps, but)
like dry, fine sand, are easily separated from each other, and are readily con-
verted into dust. In this dry state the fine powders may be kept for ever
uninjured in well-corked and sealed bottles, in all their original complete
medicinal power, without ever being injured by mites or mould; and they are
best preserved when the bottles are kept protected from the daylight (in
covered boxes, chests, cases). If not shut up in air-tight vessels, and not
preserved from the access of the light of the sun and day, all animal and
vegetable substances in time gradually lose their medicinal power more and
more, even in the entire state, but still more in the form of powder.
186
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
§ 270.
Thus two drops of the fresh vegetable juice mingled
with equal parts of alcohol are diluted with ninety-eight
drops of alcohol and potentized by means of two succus-
sions, whereby the first development of power is formed,
and this process is repeated through twenty-nine more
phials, each of which is filled three quarters full with
ninety-nine drops of alcohol, and each succeeding phial is
to be provided with one drop from the preceding phial
(which has already been shaken twice) and is in its turn
twice shaken,¹ and in the same manner at last the thirtieth
development of power (potentized decillionth dilution X),
which is the one most generally used.
$271.
All other substances adapted for medicinal use-
except sulphur, which has of late years been only em-
ployed in the form a highly diluted (X) tincture (@)—as
pure or oxydised and sulphuretted metals and other
minerals, petroleum, phosphorus, as also parts and juices
of plants that can only be obtained in the dry state,
animal substances, neutral salts, &c., all these are first to
be potentized by trituration for three hours, up to the
millionfold pulverulent attenuation, and of this one grain
is to be dissolved, and brought to the thirtieth develop-
ment of power through twenty-seven attenuating phials,
in the same manner as the vegetable juices.
2
1 In order to maintain a fixed and measured standard for developing the
power of liquid medicines, multiplied experience and careful observation have
led me to adopt two succussions for each phial, in preference to the greater
number formerly employed (by which the medicines were too highly poten-
tized). There are, however, homoeopathists who carry about with them on
their visits to patients the homoeopathic medicines in the fluid state, and who
yet assert that they do not become more highly potentized in the course of
time, but they thereby show their want of ability to observe correctly. I
dissolved a grain of soda in half an ounce of water mixed with alcohol in a
phial, which was thereby filled two-thirds full, and shook this solution con-
tinuously for half an hour, and this fluid was in potency and energy
equal to the thirtieth development of power. («)
2 As is still more circumstantially described in the prefaces to Arsenic
and Pulsatilla in the Materia Medica Pura,(a)
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
187
§ 272.
In no case is it requisite to administer more than one
single, simple medicinal substance at one time.¹ (a)
§ 273.
It is not conceivable how the slightest dubiety could
exist as to whether it was more consistent with nature
and more rational to prescribe a single, well-known
medicine at one time in a disease, or a mixture of several
differently acting drugs.
§ 274.
As the true physician finds in simple medicines, adminis-
tered singly and uncombined, all that he can possibly
desire (artificial disease-forces which are able by homoeo-
pathic power completely to overpower, extinguish, and
permanently cure natural diseases), he will, mindful
of the wise maxim that "it is wrong to attempt to
employ complex means when simple means suffice," never
think of giving as a remedy any but a single, simple
medicinal substance; for these reasons also, because even
though the simple medicines were thoroughly proved
with respect to their pure peculiar effects on the un-
impaired healthy state of man, it is yet impossible to
foresee how two and more medicinal substances might,
when compounded, hinder and alter each other's actions
on the human body; and because, on the other hand, a
simple medicinal substance when used in diseases, the
totality of whose symptoms is accurately known, renders
efficient aid by itself alone, if it be homœopathically
selected; and supposing the worst case to happen, that it
was not chosen in strict conformity to similarity of sym-
ptoms, and therefore does no good, it is yet so far
useful that it promotes our knowledge of therapeutic
୮
1 Some homœopathists have made the experiment, in cases where they
deemed one remedy homoeopathically suitable for one portion of the sym-
ptoms of a case of disease, and a second for another portion, of administering
both remedies at the same or at almost the same time; but I earnestly depre-
cate such a hazardous experiment, which can never be necessary, though it may
sometimes seem to be of use.
188
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
agents, because, by the new symptoms excited by it in
such a case, those symptoms which this medicinal sub-
stance had already shown in experiments on the healthy
human body are confirmed, an advantage that is lost
by the employment of all compound remedies.¹
§ 275.
The suitableness of a medicine for any given case of
disease does not depend on its accurate homœopathic
selection alone, but likewise on the proper size, or rather
smallness, of the dose. If we give too strong a dose of a
medicine which may have been even quite homoeopathically
chosen for the morbid state before us, it must, notwith-
standing the inherent beneficial character of its nature,
prove injurious by its mere magnitude, and by the un-
necessary, too strong impression which, by virtue of its
homoeopathic similarity of action, it makes upon the vital
force which it attacks and, through the vital force, upon
those parts of the organism which are the most sensitive,
and are already most affected by the natural disease. (a)
§ 276.
For this reason, a medicine, even though it may be
homoeopathically suited to the case of disease, does harm
in every dose that is too large, the more harm the larger
the dose, and by the magnitude of the dose it does more
harm the greater its homœopathicity and the higher the
potency selected, and it does much more injury than
any equally large dose of a medicine that is unhomoeo-
2
1 When the rational physician has chosen the perfectly homœopathic medi-
cine for the well-considered case of disease and administered it internally, he
will leave to irrational allopathic routine the practice of giving drinks
composed of other medicinal substances, of applying compresses of herbs
or fomentations with various plants, of injecting medicated glysters and of
rubbing in this or the other ointment.
2 The praise bestowed of late years by some few homœopathists on the
larger doses is owing to this, either that they chose low dynamizations of the
medicine to be administered, as I myself used to do twenty years ago, from
not knowing any better, or that the medicines selected were not perfectly
homœopathic.
2
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
189
pathic, and in no respect adapted (allopathic) to the
morbid state; for in the former case the so-called homœo-
pathic aggravation (§§ 157-160)-that is to say, the very
analogous medicinal disease produced by the vital force
stirred up by the excessively large dose of medicine, in
the parts of the organism that are most suffering and
most irritated by the original disease—which medicinal
disease, had it been of appropriate intensity, would have
gently effected a cure-rises to an injurious height; 1
the patient, to be sure, no longer suffers from the
original disease, for that has been homœopathically
eradicated, but he suffers all the more from the excessive
medicinal disease and from useless exhaustion of his
strength.
§ 277.
For the same reason, and because a medicine, provided
the dose of it was sufficiently small, is all the more
salutary and almost marvellously efficacious the more
accurately homoeopathic its selection has been, a medicine
whose selection has been accurately homoeopathic must
be all the more salutary the more its dose is reduced to
the degree of minuteness appropriate for a gentle re-
medial effect.
§ 278.
Here the question arises, what is this most suitable
degree of minuteness for sure and gentle remedial
effect; how small, in other words, must be the dose of
each individual medicine, homoeopathically selected for a
case of disease, to effect the best cure ? To solve this
problem, and to determine for every particular medicine,
what dose of it will suffice for homoeopathic therapeutic
purposes and yet be so minute that the gentlest and most
rapid cure may be thereby obtained-to solve this
problem is, as may easily be conceived, not the work of
theoretical speculation; not by fine-spun reasoning, not
by specious sophistry can we expect to obtain the solution
1 See note to § 246.
190
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
of this problem. Pure experiment, careful observation,
and accurate experience can alone determine this; and it
were absurd to adduce the large doses of unsuitable
(allopathic) medicines of the old system, which do not
touch the diseased side of the organism homoeopathically,
but only attack the parts unaffected by the disease, in
opposition to what pure experience pronounces re-
specting the smallness of the doses required for homœo-
pathic cures.
§ 279.
This pure experience shows UNIVERSALLY, that if the
disease do not manifestly depend on
depend on a considerable
deterioration of an important viscus (even though it
belong to the chronic and complicated diseases), and if
during the treatment all other alien medicinal influences
are kept away from the patient, the dose of the homoeo-
pathically selected remedy can never be prepared so small
that it shall not be stronger than the natural disease,
and shall not be able to overpower, extinguish and cure
it, at least in part, as long as it is capable of causing some,
though but a slight preponderance of its own symptoms
over those of the disease resembling it (slight homœopathic
aggravation, §§ 157-160) immediately after its in-
gestion.(a)
§ 280.
This incontrovertible axiom of experience is the
standard of measurement by which the doses of all homœo-
pathic medicines, without exception, are to be reduced to
such an extent that, after their ingestion, they shall excite
a scarcely observable homoeopathic aggravation,(a) let the
diminution of the dose go ever so far, and appear ever so
incredible to the materialistic ideas of ordinary physicians;¹
1 Let them learn from the mathematicians how true it is that a substance
divided into ever so many parts must still contain in its smallest conceivable
parts always some of this substance, and that the smallest conceivable
part does not cease to be some of this substance and cannot possibly become
nothing;-let them, if they are capable of being taught, hear from natural
philosophers that there are enormously powerful things (forces) which are
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
191
their idle declamations must cease before the verdict of
unerring experience.
§ 281.
Every patient is, especially in his diseased point,
capable of being influenced in an incredible degree by
medicinal agents corresponding by similarity of action;
and there is no person, be he ever so robust, and even
though he be affected only with a chronic or so-called
local disease, who will not soon experience the desired
change in the affected part, if he take the salutary,
homœopathically suited medicine in the smallest con-
ceivable dose, who, in a word, will not thereby be much
more altered in his health than a healthy infant of but a
day old would be. How insignificant and ridiculous is mere
theoretical scepticism in opposition to this unerring, in-
fallible experimental proof! (a)
-
perfectly destitute of weight, as, for example, caloric, light, &c., consequently
infinitely lighter than the medicine contained in the smallest doses used in
homœopathy;-let them, if they can, weigh the irritating words that bring
on a bilious fever, or the mournful intelligence respecting her only son that
kills the mother; let them touch, for a quarter of an hour, a magnet capable
of lifting a hundred pounds weight, and learn from the pain it excites that
even imponderable agencies can produce the most violent medicinal effects
upon man;—and let the weak ones among them allow the pit of their
stomach to be slightly touched by the thumb's point of a strong-willed
mesmeriser for a few minutes, and the disagreeable sensations they then suffer
will make them repent of attempting to set limits to the boundless activity of
nature; the weak-minded creatures!
If the allopathist who is trying the homœopathic system imagine he cannot
bring himself to give such small and profoundly attenuated doses, let him only
ask himself what risk he runs by so doing? If the scepticism which holds
what is ponderable only to be real, and all that is imponderable to be nothing,
be right, nothing worse could result from a dose that appears to him to be
nothing, than that no effect would ensue—and consequently this would be
always much more innocuous than what must result from his too large doses
of allopathic medicine. Why will he consider his inexperience, coupled with
prejudice, more reliable than an experience of many years corroborated by
facts? And, moreover, the homoeopathic medicine becomes potentized at
every division and diminution by trituration or succussion!—a development
of the inherent powers of medicinal substances which was never dreamed of
before my time, and which is of so powerful a character that of late years I
have been compelled by convincing experience to reduce the ten succussions
formerly directed to be given after each attenuation, to two.
192
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
$282.
The smallest possible dose of homœopathic medicine,
capable of producing only the very slightest homoeopathic
aggravation, will, because it has the power of exciting
symptoms bearing the greatest possible resemblance to
the original disease (but yet stronger even in the minute
dose), attack principally and almost solely the parts in
the organism that are already affected, highly irritated,
and rendered excessively susceptible to such a similar
stimulus, and will alter the vital force that rules in them
to a state of very similar artificial disease, somewhat
greater in degree than the natural one was; this artificial
disease will substitute itself for the natural (the original)
disease, so that the living organism now suffers from the
artificial medicinal disease alone, which, from its nature
and owing to the minuteness of the dose, will soon be
extinguished by the vital force that is striving to return to
the normal state, and (if the diease were only an acute
one) the body is left perfectly free from disease-that
is to say, quite well.
§ 283.
Now, in order to act really in conformity with nature,
the true physician will prescribe his well-selected homoeo-
pathic medicine only in exactly as small a dose as will
just suffice to overpower and annihilate the disease before
him-in a dose of such minuteness, that if human falli-
bility should betray him into administering an inappro-
priate medicine, the injury accruing from its nature being
unsuited to the disease will be diminished to a mere
trifle; moreover the harm done by the smallest possible
dose is so slight, that it may be immediately extinguished
and repaired by the natural vital powers, and by the
speedy administration of a remedy more suitably selected
according to similarity of action, and given also in the
smallest dose.(a)
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
193
§ 284.
The action of a dose, moreover, does not diminish in
the direct ratio of the quantity of material medicine
contained in the dilutions used in homoeopathic practice.
Eight drops of the tincture of a medicine to the dose
do not produce four times as much effect on the human
body as two drops, but only about twice the effect that is
produced by two drops to the dose. In like manner,
one drop of a mixture of a drop of the tincture with
ten drops of some unmedicinal fluid, when taken, will
not produce ten times more effect than one drop of a
mixture ten times more attenuated, but only about
(scarcely) twice as strong an effect, and so on, in the
same ratio—so that a drop of the lowest(a) dilution must,
and really does, display still a very considerable action.¹
1
§ 285.
The diminution of the dose essential for homoeopathic
use, will also be promoted by diminishing its volume, so
that, if, instead of a drop of a medicinal dilution, we
take but quite a small part2 of such a drop for a dose, the
th of a grain of medi-
¹ Supposing one drop of a mixture that contains
cine produces an effect
= α,
0
one drop of a more diluted mixture containing th of a grain of the
medicine will only produce an effect.
"/2;
a/43
•
-
if it contain 0,00th of a grain of medicine, about
a/8;
if it contain 100,00,000th of a grain of medicine, it will produce an
effect
and thus it goes on, the volume of the doses being equal, with every (perhaps
more than) quadratic diminution of the quantity of medicine, the action on
the human body will be diminished each time to only about one half. I have
very often seen a drop of the decillion-fold dilution of tincture of nux vomica
produce pretty nearly just half as much effect as a drop of the quintillion-
fold dilution, under the same circumstances and in the same individual.
2 For this purpose it is most convenient to employ fine sugar globules of
the size of poppy seeds, one of which imbibed with the medicine and put into
the dispensing vehicle constitutes a medicinal dose, which contains about the
three hundredth part of a drop, for three hundred such small globules will be
adequately moistened by one drop of alcohol. The dose is vastly diminished
by laying one such globule alone upon the tongue and giving nothing to drink.
If it be necessary, in the case of a very sensitive patient, to employ the
smallest possible dose and to bring about the most rapid result, one single
olfaction merely will suffice (see note to § 288).
*
·
13
194
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
object of diminishing the effect still further will be very
effectually attained; and that this will be the case may
be readily conceived for this reason, because with the
smaller volume of the dose but few nerves of the living
organism can be touched, whereby the power of the
medicine is certainly also communicated to the whole
organism, but it is a weaker power.
§ 286.
For the same reason the effect of a homœopathic dose
of medicine increases, the greater the quantity of liquid
in which it is dissolved when administered to the patient,
although the actual amount of medicine it contains re-
mains the same. For in this case, when the medicine is
taken, it comes in contact with a much larger surface of
sensitive nerves responsive to the medicinal action.
Although theorists may imagine there should be a
weakening of the action of a dose of medicine by its
dilution with a large quantity of liquid, experience asserts
exactly the opposite, at all events when the medicines.
are employed homoeopathically.¹
§ 287.
But in this increase of action by the mixture of the
dose of medicine with a larger quantity of liquid (before
its ingestion), the result is vastly different whether the
mixture of the dose of medicine with a certain quantity
of liquid is performed merely superficially and imper-
fectly, or so uniformly and intimately that the smallest
2
1 It is only the most simple of all stimulants, wine and alcohol, that have
their heating and intoxicating action diminished by dilution with much water.
2
By the word intimately I mean this: that when, for instance, the drop of a
medicinal fluid has been shaken up once with one hundred drops of spirits of
wine; that is to say, the phial containing both, held in the hand, has been
rapidly moved from above downwards with a single smart jerk of the arm,
there certainly ensues a thorough mixture of the whole, but with two, three,
ten and more such strokes, this mixture becomes much more intimate; that is
to say, the medicinal power becomes much more potentized, and the spirit of
this medicine, so to speak, becomes much more unfolded, developed, and ren-
dered much more penetrating in its action on the nerves. If, then, the
required object we wish to attain with the low dilutions be the diminution of
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
195
portion of the diluting fluid receives the same quantity
of medicine in proportion as all the rest; for the latter
becomes much more medicinally powerful by the diluting
mixture than the former. From this every one will be
able to judge for himself how to proceed with the regula-
tion of the homoeopathic medicinal doses when he desires
to diminish their medicinal action as much as possible,
in order to make them suitable for the most sensitive
patients.
1
§ 288.
The action of medicines in the liquid form³ upon the
the doses for the purpose of moderating their powers upon the organism, we
would do well to give no more than two such succussion-jerks to each of the
twenty, thirty, &c., dilution phials, and thus to develop the medicinal power only
moderately. It is also advisable, in attenuating the medicine in the state of
dry powder by trituration in a porcelain mortar, to keep within certain limits,
and, for example, to triturate strongly, for one hour only, one grain of the
crude entire medicinal substance, mixed with the first hundred grains of milk-
sugar, and to triturate the attenuation of one grain of this mixture with another
hundred grains of milk-sugar (to the 10th attenuation) likewise only for
one hour, and to make the third attenuation (to 1,003,000) also by one hour of
strong trituration of one grain of the previous mixture with one hundred grains
of milk-sugar, in order to bring the medicine to such an attenuation that its
development of power shall remain moderate. A more exact description of
this process will be found in the prefaces to Arsenic and Pulsatilla in the
Materia Medica Pura.(a)
I,
The higher we carry the attenuation accompanied by dynamization (by
two succussion-strokes), with so much the more rapid and penetrating action
does the preparation seem to affect the vital force and to alter the health,
with but slight diminution of strength even when this operation is carried
very far,—in place, as is usual (and generally sufficient) to X, when it is
carried up to XX, L, C, and higher; only that then the action always appears
to last a shorter time. (a)
2 It is especially in the form of vapour, by olfaction and inhalation of the
medicinal aura that is always emanating from a globule impregnated with a
medicinal fluid in a high development of power, and placed, dry, in a small
phial, that the homœopathic remedies act most surely and most powerfully.
The homœopathic physician allows the patient to hold the open mouth of the
phial first in one nostril, and in the act of inspiration draw the air out of it into
himself and then, if it is wished to give a stronger dose, smell in the same manner
with the other nostril, more or less strongly, according to the strength it is
intended the dose should be; he then corks np the phial and replaces it in his
pocket case, to prevent any misuse of it, and unless he wish it, he has no occa-
sion for an apothecary's assistance in his practice. A globule, of which ten,
twenty or one hundred weigh one grain, impregnated with the thirtieth poten-
196
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
living human body takes place in such a penetrating
manner, spreads out from the point of the sensitive fibres
provided with nerves whereto the medicine is first applied
with such inconceivable rapidity and so universally
through all parts of the living body, that this action of
the medicine must be denominated a spirit-like (a dynamic,
virtual) action.
$ 289.
Every part of our body that possesses the sense of
touch, is also capable of receiving the influence of medi-
cines, and of propagating their power to all other parts.¹
1
§ 290.
Besides the stomach, the tongue and the mouth are
the parts most susceptible to the medicinal influences;
tized dilution, and then dried, retains for this purpose all its power undiminished
for at least eighteen or twenty years (my experience extends this length of
time), even though the phial be opened a thousand times during that period,
if it be but protected from heat and the sun's light. Should both nostrils be
stopped up by coryza or polypus, the patient should inhale by the mouth,
holding the orifice of the phial betwixt his lips. In little children it may be
applied close to their nostrils whilst they are asleep, with the certainty of
producing an effect. The medicinal aura thus inhaled comes in contact with
the nerves in the walls of the spacious cavities it traverses without obstruction,
and thus produces a salutary influence on the vital force, in the mildest yet
most powerful manner, and this is much preferable to every other mode of
administering the medicament in substance by the mouth. All that homoeo-
pathy is capable of curing (and what can it not cure beyond the domain of
mere manual surgical affections ?) among the most severe chronic diseases that
have not been quite ruined by allopathy, as also among acute diseases, will be
most safely and certainly cured by this olfaction. I can scarcely name one
in a hundred out of the many patients that have sought the advice of myself
and my assistant during the past year, whose chronic or acute disease we have
not treated with the most happy results, solely by means of this olfaction;
during the latter half of this year, moreover, I have become convinced (of
what I never could previously have believed) that by this olfaction the power
of the medicine is exercised upon the patient in, at least, the same degree of
strength, and that more quietly and yet just as long as when the dose of
medicine is taken by the mouth, and that, consequently, the intervals at
which the olfaction should be repeated should not be shorter than in the
ingestion of the material dose by the mouth.(a)
1 A patient even destitute of the sense of smell may expect an equally
perfect action and cure from the medicine by olfaction.
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
197
but the interior of the nose is more especially so, and the
rectum, the genitals, as also all particularly sensitive
parts of our body are almost equally capable of receiving
the medicinal action; hence also, parts that are destitute.
of skin, wounded or ulcerated spots permit the powers
of medicines to exercise almost as penetrating an action
upon the organism as if the medicine had been taken by
the mouth or still better by olfaction and inhalation.
§ 291.
Even those organs which have lost their peculiar sense,
e. g. a tongue and palate that have lost the faculty of
tasting, or a nose that has lost the faculty of smelling,
communicate the power of the medicine that acts first on
them alone not less perfectly to all the other organs of
the body.
§ 292.
Even the external surface of the body, covered as it is
with skin and epidermis, is not unsusceptible of the
powers of medicines, especially those in a liquid form,
but the most sensitive parts are also the most suscep-
tible.¹(a)
§ 293.(a)
I find it necessary to allude here to animal magnetism,
as it is termed, or rather mesmerism (as it should be
called, out of gratitude to Mesmer, its first founder),
which differs so much in its nature from all other thera-
peutic agents. This curative power, often so stupidly
1 Rubbing-in appears to favour the action of the medicines only in this way,
that the friction makes the skin more sensitive, and the living fibres thereby
more capable of feeling, as it were, the medicinal power and of communi-
cating to the whole organism this health-affecting sensation. The previous
employment of friction to the inside of the thigh makes the mere laying on
of the mercurial ointment afterwards quite as powerfully medicinal as if the
ointment itself had been rubbed upon that part, a process which is termed
rubbing-in, but it is very doubtful whether the metal itself can penetrate in
substance into the interior of the body, or be taken up by the absorbent
vessels by means of this so-called rubbing-in. (a) Homœopathy, however,
hardly ever requires for its cures the rubbing-in of any medicine, nor does it
need any mercurial ointment.
198
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
denied, which streams upon a patient by the contact of
a well-intentioned person powerfully exerting his will,
either acts homoeopathically, by the production of sym-
ptoms similar to those of the diseased state to be cured;
and for this purpose a single pass made, without much
exertion of the will, with the palms of the hands not
too slowly from the top of the head downwards over
the body to the tips of the toes,¹ is serviceable in, for
instance, uterine hæmorrhages, even in the last stage
when death seems approaching; or it is useful by distri-
buting the vital force uniformly throughout the organism,
when it is in abnormal excess in one part and deficient
in other parts, for example, in rush of blood to the
head and sleepless, anxious restlessness of weakly per-
sons, &c., by means of a similar, single, but somewhat
stronger pass; or for the immediate communication
and restoration of the vital force to some one weak-
ened part or to the whole organism,―an object that
cannot be attained so certainly and with so little inter-
ference with the other medicinal treatment by any other
agent besides mesmerism. If it is wished to supply a
particular part with the vital force, this is effected by
concentrating a very powerful and well-intentioned will
for the purpose, and placing the hands or tips of the
fingers on the chronically weakened parts, whither an
internal chronic dyscrasia has transferred its important
local symptom, as, for example, in the case of old ulcers,
amaurosis, paralysis of certain limbs, &c. Many rapid
2
1 The smallest homœopathic dose, (a) which, however, often effects wonders
when used on proper occasions. Imperfect homœopathists, who think them-
selves monstrously clever, not infrequently deluge their patients in difficult
diseases with doses of different medicines, given rapidly one after the other,
which, although they may have been homeopathically selected and given in
highly potentized attenuation, bring the patients into such an over-excited state
that life and death are struggling for the mastery, and the least additional
quantity of medicine would infallibly kill them. In such cases a mere gentle
mesmeric pass and the frequent application, for a short time, of the hand of
a well-intentioned person to the part that is particularly affected, produce the
harmonious uniform distribution of the vital force throughout the organism,
and therewith rest, sleep and recovery.
2
Although by this restoration of the vital force, which ought to be
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
199
apparent cures performed in all ages, by mesmerisers.
endowed with great natural power, belong to this class.
The effect of communicated human power upon the whole
human organism was most brilliantly shown, in the resus-
citation of persons who had lain some time apparently
dead, by the most powerful, sympathetic will of a man in
full vigour of vital force,¹ and of this kind of resurrection
history records many undeniable examples.
§ 294.
All the above-mentioned methods of practising mes-
merism depend upon an influx of more or less vital force
into the patient, and hence are termed positive mesmerism.²
An opposite mode of employing mesmerism, however, as
it produces just the contrary effect, deserves to be termed
negative mesmerism. To this belong the passes which
are used to rouse from the somnambulic sleep, as also all
the manual processes known by the names of soothing and
ventilating. This discharge by means of negative mes-
merism of the vital force accumulated to excess in indi-
repeated from time to time, no permanent cure can be effected in cases where,
as has been taught above, a general internal dyscrasia lies at the root of the
old local affection, as it always does, yet this positive strengthening and
immediate saturation with vital force (which no more belongs to the category
of palliatives than does eating and drinking when hunger and thirst are
present) is no mean auxiliary to the actual treatment of the whole disease by
homœopathic medicines.
1 Especially of one of those persons, of whom there are not many, who,
along with great kindness of disposition and perfect bodily powers, possesses
but a very moderate desire for sexual intercourse, which it would give him
very little trouble wholly to suppress, in whom, consequently, all the fine vital
spirits that would otherwise be employed in the preparation of the semen, are
ready to be communicated to others, by touching them and powerfully exerting
the will. Some powerful mesmerisers, with whom I have become acquainted,
had all this peculiar character.
2 When I here speak of the decided and certain curative power of positive
mesmerism, I most assuredly do not mean that abuse of it, where, by repeated
passes of this kind, continued for half an hour or a whole hour at a time, and,
even day after day, performed on weak, nervous patients, that monstrous
revolution of the whole human system is effected which is termed somnam-
bulism, wherein the human being is ravished from the world of sense and
seems to belong more to the world of spirits-a highly unnatural and dan-
gerous state, by means of which it has not infrequently been attempted to
cure chronic diseases.
Z
200
ORGANON OF MEDICINE.
1
vidual parts of the system of undebilitated persons is
most surely and simply performed by making a very
rapid motion of the flat extended hand, held parallel to,
and about an inch distant from the body, from the top of
the head to the tips of the toes." The more rapidly
this pass is made, so much the more effectually will the
discharge be effected. Thus, for instance, in the case
where a previously healthy woman,2 from the sudden
suppression of her catamenia by a violent mental shock,
lies to all appearance dead, the vital force which is pro-
bably accumulated in the precordial region, will, by such
a rapid negative pass, be discharged and its equilibrium
throughout the whole organism restored, so that the re-
suscitation generally follows immediately. In like
manner, a gentle, less rapid, negative pass diminishes the
excessive restlessness and sleeplessness accompanied with
anxiety sometimes produced in very irritable persons by a
too powerful positive pass, &c.
3
1 It is a well known rule that a person who is either to be positively or
negatively mesmerised, should not wear silk on any part of the body.
2 Hence a negative pass, especially if it be very rapid, is extremely injurious
to a delicate person affected with a chronic ailment and deficient in vital
force.
3 A strong country lad, ten years of age, received in the morning, on
account of slight indisposition, from a professed female mesmeriser, several
very powerful passes with the points of both thumbs, from the pit of the
stomach along the lower edge of the ribs, aud he instantly grew deathly pale,
and fell into such a state of unconsciousness and immobility that no effort
could arouse him, and he was almost given up for dead. I made his eldest
brother give him a very rapid negative pass from the crown of the head over
the body to the feet, and in one instant he recovered his consciousness and
became lively and well.
APPENDIX.
Title.
On the title-page of the first edition we read :
"Organon of the Rational System of Medicine, by
Samuel Hahnemann."
Then follows a motto from the poet Gellert which may be thus translated:
"The Truth we mortals need
Us blest to make and keep,
The All-wise slightly covered o'er,
But did not bury deep."
In the second edition the title and motto were changed to what we find
them in the fifth edition.
The first edition has no table of contents.
Introduction.
To p. 1:
The portion of the Introduction, to "homœopathy" p. 38, appears first in
the fourth edition. A few sentences have been added, and some unimportant
variations of phraseology appear in the fifth edition. The heading of the
Introduction in the fourth edition is simply "I. Review of the Allopathy of
the Old School of Medicine." The portion of the Introduction containing
the instances of homeopathic practice in the old school is " II." This part
is omitted from the fifth edition.
Hahnemann invariably uses the word "allœopathy," derived from ảλλoĩov
πάθος. His followers have generally adopted "allopathy" from aλλo
πáloг. The meaning is the same, the more usual form has been employed in
the translation.
To p. 2:
The foregoing paragraphs are only present in the fifth edition. The
Introduction in the fourth edition commences with the next paragraph.
To p. 4, note:
This and the preceding note are only in the fifth edition.
To p. 5:
In fourth edition: "Sometimes by suppressing prominent symptoms by
contrary-acting medicines, that is to say, by the antipathic (palliative)
method (which is estimated in the text of the Organon) sometimes"
To p. 6:
<<
Spiritual" not in fourth edition.
202
APPENDIX.
To p. 6, note:
"Often " in fourth edition.
To p. 9:
This allusion to the practice of Broussais is not in the fourth edition. It
is remarkable that this "blood-thirsty Parisian physician" in the last years of
his life expressed himself in favour of Hahnemann's system.
To p. 10:
"
(In accordance with the maxim: tolle causam)" in fourth edition.
To p. 10, second reference:
This paragraph is almost identical with § 49 of the second and third
editions, where it is preceded by the following:
"§ 48. I am well aware that physicians do not employ
in diseases such allopathic medicines not selected according
to similarity of action, with the intentional design of giving
allopathic and false morbific agents. No!
No! They know
nothing whatever about all the medicines they administer,
neither whether they are morbific forces similar (and there-
fore salutary) to the disease, nor whether they are dis-
similar (consequently useless and hurtful). They have no
idea of this most necessary to be attended to, most essential
condition for the cure, but they prescribe medicines for
some pretended name of a disease, or for an imaginary
internal, invisible, morbific cause, because others before
them have done and advised this without knowing any-
thing about the true nature and pure effects on the
human health of any of the drugs mixed together in the
prescription. In the great majority of cases there can
be none other but drugs dissimilar in action to the diseased
state-allopathic medicines, in fact, therefore useless and
injurious in such cases."
To p. 11:
This paragraph is not in fourth edition.
To p. 14:
In the fourth edition this paragraph terminates here.
M
To p. 15:
From "I admit," p. 11, to this point is nearly identical with §§ 50–59 of
second and third editions.
The following in the second and third editions is omitted in the two last
editions.
""
§ 60. In all ages the favourite treatment was by purga-
tives and laxatives. From these physicians saw the most
frequent and quickest changes in all sorts of diseases; not
because they carried off the impossible morbid matter
APPENDIX.
203
supposed to exist in the interior (which was not present
anywhere in the organism, and were there such a thing
the very last place in which it could be retained is the
intestinal canal which so readily and certainly expels
foreign substances). No! their simple reason for em-
ploying them was because these painful irritations of the
intestinal canal most readily caused an artificial disease
of the primæ vix which suppressed and suspended the
original disease for some time. The stomach and bowels
are made ill by the purgatives, and the worse they
become the more is the malady for which the physician
was called in, silenced, without, however, being thereby
cured, if it was a long-standing disease.
CC
§ 61. Can this be called a cure? No! as soon as
the physician, in consequence of the increasing debility,
is obliged to leave off purging, the natural, chronic disease
returns, not only as intense as before but in a much
severer form, on account of the weakening of the patient
by this loss of humours attended by pain, and on account
of the added injury caused by the other peculiar effects
of the purgative medicines (for all purgatives have in
addition to the irritant effects on the bowels many other
medicinal effects on human beings). No chronic malady
will be cured by this allopathic treatment, and it is only
diseases of rapid course (which would go off by them-
selves) which seem to yield to it, because the period of
their natural duration elapsed in the meantime, and the
bodily strength gradually returned by itself."
To p. 16:
The second and third editions have here the following:
..
§ 64. Cure the disease¹ and then the source of all
these degenerated matters, of all the morbid excretions
and of all that has hitherto been regarded as morbific
matter, is at the same time destroyed. That is real
curing. This kind of true, mild and permanent cure is
"The venereal disease with the chancre still present and the itch of
workers in wool, both of which, in the opinion of the old school, have a
material virus, are most entirely and perfectly cured and, if of recent origin,
in a short time, by a few doses of the best preparation of their specific
remedies which cause no evacuation by stool, urine, sweat or saliva.”
204
APPENDIX.
easily found on looking at what occurs in Nature, for the
purpose on the one hand of avoiding that process by which
Nature herself never attains the object, when she attacks
the original disease by a dissimilar (allopathic) malady,
by which, consequently, it is not removed but always aggra-
vated; and, on the other hand, of imitating her successful
cures, when by opposing to the original disease a morbific
force similar, though different to it, the original disease
is quickly removed, annihilated and cured."
To p. 16, note:
This additional information about the tape-worm occurs in the corresponding
note to § 62 of the second and third editions.
"The tape-worm lives in the human body which has not been made more
ill by unsuitable medicines (the tape-worm is most frequently met with in
subjects below the years of puberty—rather less frequently at other ages) for
a few years only, to wit, as long as the contents of the bowels are so consti-
tuted as to contain nourishment for the worm. But if the constitution of
its human host gradually changes, if he becomes stronger and healthier, then
his intestinal contents no longer afford sustenance for the tape-worm; it
diminishes in size and at last goes away altogether, as though starved or
worn out by age. Hence it follows that the physician can pursue no better
treatment for the tape-worm than to promote this necessary alteration in the
body by the homœopathic, radical cure of the chronic malady, which betrays
itself by those acute symptoms curable by fern-root and by other signs,
and when they are cured the tape-worm disappears of its own accord
(starved or grown old), and the patient, even should he be attacked by
indisposition, feels nothing more of the worm.
To p. 17:
This note is not in the fourth edition.
To p. 26:
The last paragraph of this note is not in the fourth edition.
To p. 28:
This paragraph is new in the fifth edition.
To p. 33:
The four last paragraphs are new in the fifth edition.
To p. 34:
This and the previous note (p. 33) are new in the fifth edition.
To p. 38:
The three last paragraphs appear first in the fifth edition.
To p. 38 (second reference):
Already in the Essay on a New Principle (Lesser Writings, p. 311) this
maxim was stated with perfect clearness -though Hahnemann then thought
that it was not a therapeutic rule of general application. His words are:
"We should imitate Nature, which sometimes cures a
chronic disease by super-adding another, and employ in
the (especially chronic) disease we wish to cure, that medi-
APPENDIX.
205
cine which is able to produce another very similar artificial
disease, and the former will be cured: similia similibus.”
and again (L. W., p. 314):
"In order to discover the true remedial powers of a
medicine for chronic diseases, we must look to the specific
artificial disease it can develop in the human body, and
employ it in a very similar morbid condition of the organism
which it is wished to remove.
"The analogous maxim: In order to cure radically cer-
tain chronic diseases, we must search for medicines which
can excite a similar disease—the more similar the better—
in the human body-will thereby become evident.'
""
In the Medicine of Experience (Lesser Writings, p. 514) the homoeopathic
therapeutic rule is put thus:
"In order to be able to cure, we shall only require to
oppose to the existing abnormal irritation of the disease an
appropriate medicine, that is to say, another morbific force
whose effect is very similar to that the disease displays.'
""
The corresponding passage is nearly identical in the three first editions of
the Organon, of which it is the opening passage. In the first edition it
runs thus:
"Hitherto the diseases of human beings were treated
not rationally, not on fixed principles but according to
various curative intentions, among others according to the
palliative rule: contraria contrariis curentur.
(<
Directly opposite to this lies the truth, the real road
to cure, to which I give the guide in this work to cure
mildly, rapidly and permanently choose, in every case
of disease, a medicine which can of itself produce an
affection similar (oμotov Tábos) to that it is wished to cure
(similia similibus curentur)!”
In the second and third editions the words "not rationally" are omitted, the
phraseology is altered to "not according to principles based on nature and
experience, but according to capriciously imagined curative intentions."
The words "to which I give the guide in this work" are omitted; "certainly "
is inserted after "mildly."
The fourth edition differs from all the others. The passage runs:
"Thus the diseases of mankind were hitherto treated,
not according to principles that were firmly based on nature
and experience, not with suitable remedies, but sometimes
Dorm
206
APPENDIX.
according to capriciously imagined curative intentions,
sometimes in imitation of the indirect operations of the
senseless, merely animal vital force left alone to its own
self-help, compelled to act in diseases in obedience to the
laws of the organic constitution of our bodies, unable, on
reflection, to conceive and select the best plan; this vital
force has, alas! been held to be the wisest teacher of the
healing art, and its instinctive longing in diseases for
oppositely acting soothing and palliative remedies has been
imitated in the treatment contraria contrariis."
The next paragraph is the same as in the fifth edition, only the formula
"similia similibus curentur" is inserted after "maxim."
The combination of Greek words used by Hahnemann to denote his
system, "homoeopathy," is found in the adjective form, though with a
different meaning, in the New Testament, thus: kai nμεïç оµоιoжа¤εïç
ἐσμεν ὑμῖν ἄνθρωποι (Aets, xiv, 15); and again: ᾿Ηλίας ἄνθρωπος ἦν
ὁμοιοπαθὴς ἡμῖν (James, v, 17).
The Latin formula employed by Hahnemann is frequently written errone-
ously similia similibus curantur, and as erroneously translated "likes
cure likes." Hahnemann was too good a Latin scholar to use the verb
"curare "in the sense of "to cure;" besides, he always wrote the formula
similia similibus curentur, thereby giving an imperative or mandatory turn
to the phrase. The translation must evidently be "let likes be treated by
likes." This is evident from the translation or paraphrase he gives in every
edition, showing it to be a therapeutic maxim or rule. In the first edition
he calls the phrase: "guide to the true way of healing" (Anleitung zum
ächten Heilweg). In the second, third and fourth editions it is "the
maxim" (Satz). In the three first editions the Latin formula comes in after
the German paraphrase. In the fourth edition the Latin precedes its
vernacular paraphrase. In the fifth edition a different arrangement is
adopted. The Latin formula is no longer in conjunction with its para-
phrase, but occurs in the preceding paragraph, and is there termed "the only
therapeutic law conformable to nature” (das einzig naturgemässe Heilge-
setz). The German paraphrase is still, however, " maxim " (Satz). By the
dislocation of the Latin formula from its German equivalent, and by its
being no longer termed Satz, i. e. "maxim," but Heilgesetz, literally "law of
healing," it would seem as though Hahnemann was inclined to adopt the
idea conveyed in the innovation of “curantur" with its incorrect rendering
by the phrase "likes cure likes." In the aphoristic portion of the work,
however, he teaches that the homoeopathic therapeutic rule is the outcome or
corollary of the law of nature that a weaker affection is extinguished by a
stronger similar one (§§ 24—26). From this the therapeutic rule "treat
likes by likes" is an obvious logical deduction.
To p. 39:
In previous editions the following examples (omitted in the fifth edition)
are given (the inverted commas are purposely omitted in this long quotation):
MU
APPENDIX.
207
I shall here give some examples* of these homœo-
pathic cures, which derive an undeniable significance
through the newly discovered and flourishing homoeopathy,
but which are not needed to support the latter, because it
stands firm without any aid from without.¹
2
The author of the treatise on epidemic diseases
(επiềnμv) attributed to Hippocrates mentions a cholera
that had resisted every remedy, and which he cured by
means of white hellebore alone, which, however, excites
cholera of itself, as witnessed by Forestus, Ledelius,*
Reimann, and several others.
3
5
1 If, in the cases which will be cited here, the doses of medicine exceeded
those which the safe homœopathic system prescribes, they were, of course,
very naturally attended with the danger which is to be anticipated from
large doses of homeopathic remedies. However, it often happens, from
various causes which cannot always be discovered, that even very large
doses of homœopathic medicines effect a cure, without doing any particular
harm, either from the vegetable substance by long keeping having lost
a part of its strength, or because abundant evacuations ensued which
destroyed the greater part of the action of the remedy; or, finally, because
the stomach had received at the same time other substances, which, acting
as antidotes, greatly lessened the strength of the dose.
2 At the commencement of lib. 5. [The case, as recorded, is as follows:
"A man at Athens was seized with a cholera; he vomited and had a dis-
charge downwards, and was in a good deal of pain. His vomiting and
purging could not be stopped. His voice failed him, he could not be turned
in his bed; his eyes were covered with a mist, and were hollow. He was
affected with spasms, which extended from his bowels up to his stomach, and
then he had the hiccup. His stools were much more copious than what he
voided by vomiting. He drank some hellebore in the juice of lentils, and,
moreover, drank some of that juice after it, as much as he could, and by this
induced a vomiting, after which both the vomiting and purging stopped, but
he became cold. Then he washed himself downwards from the middle, until
the upper parts were quite warm. He lived after this. The next day he
drank a pottage of barley."]
3 P. Forestus, xviii, obs. 44.
4 Ledelius, Misc. nat. cur., dec. 3, ann. i, obs. 65.
5 Reimann, Bresl. Samml., 1724, p. 535. In this, and in all the examples
that follow, I have purposely abstained from reporting either my own obser-
vations or those of my pupils, upon the special effects of each individual
medicine, but only those of the physicians of times past. My object
* In the first edition very few references to the sources of these cases are
given, but they are mostly carefully indicated by foot-notes in the second,
third, and fourth editions.
208
APPENDIX.
The English sweating sickness, which first appeared in
the year 1485, and which, more murderous than the
plague itself, killed in the commencement (as testified by
Willis) ninety-nine patients out of a hundred, could not
be subdued until physicians had learned to administer
sudorifics to their patients. After that, as Sennert¹ ob-
serves, few persons died of it.*
A case of diarrhoea which had lasted several years,
threatening the patient with inevitable death, and for
which every other medicine had been tried without suc-
cess, was, to Fischer's (but not my) great surprise, cured
in a speedy and permanent manner by a purgative ad-
ministered by an unlearned empiric.
2
Murray (whom I select from numerous other authori-
ties) informs us, as does also daily experience, that among
the symptoms produced by the use of tobacco, vertigo,
nausea and anxiety are the principal. Now Diemer-
broeck, when attacked with those very symptoms of
vertigo, nausea and anxiety, in the course of his medical
treatment of epidemic diseases in Holland, removed them
by smoking tobacco.†
3
The hurtful effects which some writers (among others
Georgi) ascribe to the use of the agaricus muscarius, by
the inhabitants of Kamtschatka, and which consist of
4
in this is to show that the art of curing homoeopathically might have been
discovered before my time.
1 De Febribus, iv, cap. 15.
2 In Hufeland's Journal für praktische Heilkunde, vol. x, iv, p. 127.
3 Tract. de Peste, Amsterdam, 1665, p. 273.
4 Beschreibung aller Nationen des russischen Reichs, pp. 78, 267, 281,
321, 329, 352.
* The first edition has here, "Catgut bougies introduced into the healthy
urethra always cause a flow of mucus, and for that reason they so often cure
old gleets."
In the first three editions there follows: " Chomel, Grant,a and Mar-
riguesb saw convulsions produced by the excessive use of tobacco; and long
before them Zacutuse the Portuguese found a syrup prepared from the juice
of tobacco a very efficacious remedy in many cases of epilepsy.
a In the Samml. a. Abh. f. pr. A., xiii, 1.
b In Vandermonde, Recueil period., vii, p. 67.
c De Medicorum principum historia, lib. i, obs. 33, p. 234 (Amstel.,
1637).
APPENDIX.
209
1
tremors, convulsions and epilepsy, became remedial in the
hands of C. G. Whistling, who used this fungus with
success in cases of convulsions accompanied with tremor;
likewise in those of J. C. Bernhardt, who used it with
success in a species of epilepsy.
2
3
The remark made by Murray, that oil of anise-seed allays
pains of the stomach and flatulent colic caused by purga-
tives, does not surprise us when we know that J. P.
Albrecht observed pains in the stomach, and P. Forest 5
violent colic, caused by anise-seed oil.
4
If F. Hoffmann praises the efficacy of yarrow in various
kinds of hæmorrhage; if G. E. Stahl, Buchwald, and
Löseke found this plant useful in excessive hæmorrhoidal
flux; if Quarin and the editors of the Breslauer Samm-
lungen speak of the cures it has effected of hæmoptysis;
and finally, if Thomasius (according to Haller) used it
successfully in uterine hæmorrhages,-these cures are evi-
dently owing to the power possessed by the plant of
exciting hæmorrhages and hæmaturia, as observed by
Casp. Hoffmann, and particularly epistaxis, as noticed by
Boecler.7
6
8
Scovolo, besides others, cured a case of painful dis-
charge of purulent urine by bearberry; which never could
have been performed if this plant had not the property
of exciting scalding during urination with discharge of
slimy urine, as actually seen by Sauvages.⁹ *
1 Diss. de virt. Agaric. musc., Jena, 1718, p. 13.
² Chym. Vers. und Erfahrungen, Leipsic, 1754, obs. 5, p. 324; Gruner,
De viribus Agar. musc., Jena, 1778, p. 13.
3 Appar. Medic., 2nd edit., i, p. 429, 430.
4 Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. 2, ann. viii, obs. 169. [His words are, "Cardial-
giam atque alia symptomata."]
5 Observat. et Curationes, lib. 21.
6 De Medicam. Officin., Leyden, 1738.
7
Cynosura Mat. Med. Cont., p. 552.
8 In Girardi, De Uva ursi, Padua, 1764.
9 Nosolog., iii, p. 200. [A mistake; Sauvages has no 3rd vol.]
* In the 1st edition only the following occurs:
"The spotted hemlock, now so seldom used, has not infrequently cured
serious diseases homœopathically, as the writings of the best physicians
testify. If it can cause asthma as Baylies observed, short gasping respira-
tion according to Stoerck, violent cough according to Lange, dry cough, very
14
210
APPENDIX.
And though the frequent experience of Stoerck, Marges,
Planchon, du Monceau, F. C. Junker, Schinz, Ehrmann,
and others had not already established the fact that
colchicum cures a species of dropsy, still this power
was to have been expected from it, from the peculiar
property it possesses of diminishing the urinary secre-
tion with continual desire to pass water and scanty dis-
charge of fiery red urine, as witnessed by Stoerck¹ and
de Berge. The cure of hypochondriacal asthma effected
by Göritz by means of colchicum, and that of an asthma
complicated with an apparent hydrothorax, performed by
Stoerck with the same substance, were evidently owing
to the homoeopathic property which this root possesses
of exciting dyspnoea and asthma, as witnessed by de
Berge.5
2
3
4
6
Muralto saw what we may witness every day, viz.
that jalap, besides creating colic, also causes great restless-
ness and agitation. To this property (as every physician
familiar with homoeopathic truth can understand) is owing
its salutary power of helping little children affected with
colic, restlessness and crying, and giving them tranquil
sleep, as G. W. Wedel' justly lauds it for.
Libellus de Colchico, Vienna, 1763, p. 12.
2 Journal de Médecine, xxii.
3 A. E. Büchner, Miscell. Phys. Med. Mathem., Ann. 1728, Jul.,
1213; Erfurt, 1732.
4 Ibid., Cases 11, 13, contin. Cases 4, 9. [Case 11 was one of cough with
dyspnoea; Case 13, of uræmic coma with general dropsy and cough.]
5 Ibid., loc. cit.
• Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. 2, ann. vii, obs. 112.
7 Opiolog., lib. i, part 1, cap. ii, p. 38.
pp. 1212,
severe cough and nocturnal cough again according to Stoerck, dyspnea and a
kind of nocturnal whooping-cough according to Landeutte, then we can
easily understand how it could cure a nocturnal asthma as Boulard observed,
a convulsive cough after suppressed scabies as Stoerck records, an obstinate
cough as Viventius asserts, and a kind of whooping-cough as Butter, Arm-
strong, Lentin, and Ranoe witnessed. Stoerck's cure of a dysuria by hem-
lock is explained by the strangury Lange and Ehrhardt found it to cause.
If Stoerck cured a case of amaurosis by hemlock, that was owing to its power
to cause sudden blindness (according to Amatus the Portuguese), dimness of
vision (according to Baylies and Andree), and weakness of sight (according
to Gatacker).
APPENDIX.
211
2
It is also known, and has been more than sufficiently
attested by Murray, Hillary and Spielmann, that senna
leaves occasion a kind of colic, and produce, according to
Caspar¹ and Friedrich Hoffmann, much flatulence and
turgor of the bloods (the ordinary cause of insomnia). It
was this inherent (homoeopathic) property of senna which
enabled Detharding to cure with its aid patients afflicted
with violent colic, and put an end to their restless
nights.
4
Stoerck, who was otherwise such an acute observer,
might have perceived that the property of dictamnus root,
which he himself observed, of sometimes causing a viscid
mucous discharge from the vagina, was the very same
property which enabled him to cure with this root a leucor-
rhoea of long standing.
5
6
7
Stoerck should, moreover, not have been astonished
that he was able to cure a general, chronic, humid, eroding,
scabious eruption with clematis, having himself ascer-
tained that this plant has the power of producing a
scabious papular eruption over the whole body.9*
8
If, as Murray asserts,10 euphrasia cures lippitudo and
a certain form of ophthalmia, how could it otherwise do
so but by the faculty it possesses of exciting a kind of
inflammation in the eyes, as was remarked by Lobelius ?11
1 De Medicin. Officin., lib. 1, cap. 36.
2 Diss. de Manná, § 16.
3 Murray, loc. cit., ii, p. 507.
4 Ephem. Nat. Cur., cent. x, obs. 76.
5 Lib. de Flamm. Jovis, Vienna, 1769, cap. 2. [The 1st edition has "leucor-
rhoea of viscid mucus mixed with streaks of blood," probably an aggravation
of an existing leucorrhoea.]
6 Ibid., cap. 9.
7 Ibid., cap. 13.
8 Ibid., p. 33.
9 [The eruption that appeared under clematis was in a syphilitic patient.]
10 Appar. Medic., ii, p. 221, 2nd edit.
11 Stirp. Adversar., p. 219. [The first and second editions add the names
* The following passage occurs only in the 1st edition :
“Because the mere application of euphorbia juice to the abdomen caused
ædematous swelling of the whole body, as Scopoli observed, a great number of
physicians and common people were able to cure a kind of dropsy with
euphorbia, as Hermann and Boecler assert."
212
APPENDIX.
According to J. H. Lange,¹ nutmeg has been found
very efficacious in hysterical fainting fits; certainly for no
other natural reason than the homoeopathic one, that when
given in strong doses to a person in health it is capable of
producing, as stated by J. Schmid and Cullen, suspen-
sion of the senses and general insensibility.*
2
3
The old practice of applying rose water externally in
inflammations of the eye looks like a tacit acknowledg-
ment that there exists in the leaves of the rose some
curative power for such affections. This is owing to its
homoeopathic power of exciting a species of ophthalmia
in healthy persons, an effect experienced by Echtius,*
Ledilius, and Rau.6
5
4
8
If, as asserted by Pet. Rossi, Van Mons, J. Monti,⁹
Sybel,¹0 and others, the rhus toxicodendron and radicans†
have the faculty of producing vesicles which gradually cover
the entire body, a man of sense easily perceives how this
plant is capable of curing homoeopathically various kinds
of herpetic eruptions, as testified by Dufresnoy and Van
of Bonnet (Mercur. Compil., 13) and Sim. Paulli (Quadripart. botan., Class
iii). The observation of Lobelius was an aggravation only.]
1
¹ Domest. Brunsvic., p. 136.
2 Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. 2, ann. ii, obs. 20.
Materia Medica, ii, p. 233. [Cullen's patient was alternately somnolent
and delirious.]
4 In Adami, Vita Medic., p. 72. [Echtius only mentions" sternutatio."]
5 Misc. Nat. Curios., dec. 2, ann. ii, obs. 140.
6 Rau, Ueber den Werth des homöop. Heilverfahrens, p. 73.
7 Observ. de Nonnullis Plantis, quæ pro venenatis habentur, Pisis, 1767.
8 In Dufresnoy, Des propriétés du Rhus radicans, p. 206. [In Dufresnoy's
work on rhus, which, by the way, has only ninety-six pages, Van Mons is not
mentioned as an observer of the effects of the plant, or as having cured any
cases, but only appears as an apothecary who communicated to Dufresnoy
some observations of practitioners of the cure of cases of dartres and
paralysis by rhus, at Dufresnoy's suggestion. Twenty cases of paralysis of
the lower extremities cured by rhus are related by Dufresnoy in this work.]
9 Acta Instit. Bonon. Sc. et Art., iii, 165.
CC
""
10 In Med. Annalen, 1811, July.
*The first three editions add this paragraph:
"Boecler and Linné assert that the Rhamnus frangula given internally
causes a kind of dropsy. The reason of this is obvious; Schwenkfeld saw a
kind of dropsy produced by the application of the inner bark ofthis shrub."
No references to these authors are given in either of these editions.
† The 1st edition mentions R. radicans and toxicodendron separately.
APPENDIX.
213
Mons.
What could have enabled this plant (as observed
by Alderson¹) to cure a paralysis of the lower extremities.
attended with mental weakness unless it was its obvious
power to cause complete prostration of the muscular powers,
with mental aberration taking the form of fear of im-
pending death, as witnessed by Zadig ?2
4
The woody nightshade, according to Carrère,³ has cured
the most violent diseases caused by a chill, which could
result from no other cause but that this herb, in cold and
damp weather, is extremely apt to produce various.
affections like those which arise from a chill, as Carrère
himself has observed, and likewise Starcke.5 Fritze 6
saw dulcamara produce convulsions, and De Haen 7
witnessed convulsions attended with delirium; on the
other hand, the latter cured convulsions attended with
delirium with small doses of dulcamara.8 It is useless to
seek in the domain of speculation the reason why dulca-
mara is so efficacious in a species of eczema or herpes, as
witnessed by Carrère, Fouquet 10 and Poupart; since
it is revealed to us by nature, which requires homoeo-
pathy in order to effect a safe cure, viz. that dulcamara
can of itself produce a kind of eczema. Carrère saw the
use of this plant excite an herpetic eruption which
9
11
1 In Samml. aus. Abh. f. pr. Aerzte, xviii, 1. [Darwin (Zoonomie, ii, i,
p. 732) is also cited as an authority for this remedial action of rhus in the
first two editions.]
2 In Hufeland's Journal der prakt. Heilk., v, p. 3.
3 Carrère (and Starcke), Abhandl. über die Eigenschaften des Nacht-
schattens oder Bitterssüses, Jena, 1786, pp. 20-23.
4 Ibid.
5 In Carrère, ibid., pp. 140, 249.
6 Annalen des klinischen Instituts, iii, p. 45.
7 Ratio Medendi, tom. iv, p. 228.
8 Ibid., where he says, "Dulco-amaræ stipites majori dosi convulsiones et
deliria excitant, moderata vero spasmos, convulsionesque solvunt." How
near was De Haen to the discovery of the therapeutic law most in conformity
to nature! [In 1st edition there is no mention of convulsions, but, on the other
hand, dulcamara is credited with causing and curing roughness and fissures
of the tongue, on the authority of Haller and Vicat, and leucorrhoea, testified
to by Rahn, Carrère, and Durande.]
9 Ratio Medendi, tom. iv, p. 92.
10 In Razoux, Tables nosologiques, p. 275.
11 Traité des Dartres, Paris, 1782, pp. 184, 192.
214
APPENDIX.
2
covered the entire body for a fortnight;¹ on another occa-
sion it produced eczema on the hands, and in yet another
case its eruption attacked the labia pudendi.3
4
5
Rucker saw the black nightshade produce swelling of
the entire body. This is the reason that Gatacker and
Cirillo succeeded in curing with its aid (homoeopathically)
a species of dropsy.
6
8
Boerhaave, Sydenham and Radcliffe cured another
species of dropsy with elder, because, as Haller 10 informs
us, even its external application causes an ædematous
swelling.
De Haen,¹¹ Sarcone12 and Pringle ¹³ rendered due homage
to truth and experience by declaring openly that they
cured pleurisy with squill, a root which, on account of
its excessive acrid properties, ought to be forbidden in a
disease of this nature, where, according to the received
method, only sedative, relaxing and cooling remedies
are admissible. The disease in question subsided, never-
theless, under the influence of squill, in conformity with
the homoeopathic law of nature, for J. C. Wagner¹ saw
pleurisy and inflammation of the lungs produced by the
action of the plant.15 *
1 Traité des Dartres, Paris, 1782, p. 96.
2 Ibid., p. 149.
p. 164.
3 Ibid., p.
9
4 Commerc. Liter. Noric., 1731, p. 372.
› Versuche und Bemerk. der Edinb. Gesellschaft, Altenburg, 1762, vii,
pp. 95, 98.
6 Consulti Medichi, tom. iii, Naples, 1738, 4.
↑ Historia Plantarum, pt. 1, p. 207.
8 Opera, p. 496. [Syd. Soc. edit., vol. ii, p. 176. Not by any specific
action, since if it do not excite vomiting or purging, or either or both only
sparingly, it is useless.]
9 In Haller, Arzneimittellehre, p. 349.
10 In Vicat, Plantes vénéneuses, p. 125.
11 Ratio Medendi, pt. 1, p. 13.
12 History of Diseases in Naples, vol. i, p. 175.
13 Obs. on the Diseases of the Army, ed. 7, §. 143.
14 Observationes Clinica, Lubeck, 1737.
15 [Wagner says "peripneumonia.”]
* The following paragraphs appear in the first edition only:
"According to Gaterau's observation the use of taxus caused violent
APPENDIX.
215
4
5
A great many practitioners, D. Crüger, Ray, Kellner,
Kaaw Boerhaave and others,¹ have observed that thorn-
apple (stramonium) excites singular delusions and convul-
sions. It is precisely this faculty that enabled physicians
to cure with its aid dæmonia2 (extraordinary delusions
attended with spasmodic movements of the limbs) and
other convulsions, as was done by Sidren³ and Weden-
berg. If in the hands of Sidren it cured two cases of
chorea, one of which had been occasioned by fright and
the other by mercurial vapour, it was because it possessed
the faculty of exciting similar involuntary movements of
the limbs, as observed by Kaaw Boerhaave and Lobstein."
Numerous observations, and among others those made by
P. Schenk, have shown us that it can destroy recollec-
tion and memory in a very short time; it can also, ac-
cording to the testimony of Sauvages and Schinz, cure
6
1 C. Crüger, in Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. 3, ann. ii, obs. 88; Boerhaave,
Impetum Faciens, Leyden, 1745, p. 282; Kellner, in the Bresl. Samml.,
1727.
Veckoskrift for Läkare, iv, p. 40, et seq.
3 Diss. de Stramonii usu in Malis Convulsivis, Upsala, 1773.
4 Diss. de Stramonii usu in Morb. convuls., Upsala, 1773.
5 Diss. Morborum Casus, spec. i, Upsala, 1785.
• The references will be found in the Mat. Med. Pura., vol ii, Engl. edit.
cough, and on that account only Perry (Journ. de Méd., 1790) was able to
cure cough with it.
"The power of oil of turpentine (according to Stedman) to cause stran-
gury, a kind of dropsy, and pains in the kidney, endowed this ethereal oil
with the homœopathic remedial property of curing some kinds of dropsy and
sciatica, as asserted by Home, Herz, Thilenius, Cheyne and others.
“Chinese tea is actually nothing but a medicinal substance. We find in
the Nov. Act. N. C. and in Lettsom contractive spasm of the stomach pro-
duced by tea; the latter also mentions a pressive gastralgia caused by it,
which sufficiently accounts for the cure of cardialgia in pregnant women by
Buchan. According to numerous observations (by Geoffroy, Tode and
James, in Lettsom's work) it has not infrequently caused convulsions and
epilepsy, and owing to this property it allays the convulsions in measles
and smallpox (Eph. N. C., dec. 3, ann. i, obs. 1618); it is also a capital
homœopathic remedy for the exhaustion caused by over-exertion (Lettsom)
only because of its power to cause general debility, which was observed by
Lettsom, Whytt and Murray; and its property, observed by Lettsom, to
cause drowsiness enables the Chinese to cure the somnolence in diseases
(Herrmann)."
216
APPENDIX.
weakness of memory. On the same principle, Schmalz¹
succeeded in curing with the aid of this plant a case of
melancholy alternating with mania, because, according to
A. Costa, it has the inherent power of exciting similar
alternating mental and emotional aberrations.
2
3
Percival, Stahl, Quarin, and other physicians, have
observed that cinchona bark occasions pressive pain in the
stomach. Others (Morton, Friborg, Bauer and Quarin)
have seen this substance produce vomiting and diarrhœa ;
others (D. Crüger and Morton), syncope; others, great
debility; others (Thomson, Richard, Stahl and C. E.
Fischer), a kind of jaundice; others (Quarin and Fischer),
bitterness of the mouth; and yet others, tension of the
abdomen. And it is precisely when all these symptoms
or morbid states occur in intermittent fevers that Torti
and Cleghorn recommend the use of cinchona alone.*
The advantageous effects of this bark in cases of exhaus-
tion, indigestion and loss of appetite after acute fevers
(particularly when these have been treated by venesection
and debilitating evacuants), depend on the faculty which it
possesses of depressing excessively the vital powers, pro-
ducing bodily and mental exhaustion, indigestion and loss
of appetite, as observed by Cleghorn, Friborg, Crüger,
Romberg, Stahl,+ Thomson and others.
4
How would it have been possible to stop various
sorts of hæmorrhage with ipecacuanha, as effected by
Baglivi, Barbeyrac, Gianella, Dalberg, Bergius and others,
if this medicine did not of itself possess the faculty
of producing hæmorrhages ?-as Murray, Scott and
Geoffroy have witnessed. How could it be so effica-
5
1 Chir, und Medic. Vorfälle, Leipzic, 1784, p. 178.
2 In P Schenck, lib. i, obs. 139.
3 Quoted in my Mat. Med. Pur. [Engl. edit.], i.
4 Vide my Mat. Med. Pur., i.
5 Ibid.
* Recommended by these two last authors in spite of, not because of these
complications.
+ Cleghorn, Friborg, Romberg, Stahl, from its use in agues.
The first edition has the following: "Piso, Huck, and Meyer, and many
APPENDIX.
217
3
5
cious in asthma, and particularly in spasmodic asthma,
as it is described to have been by Akenside,' Meyer,"
Bang, Stoll,* Fouquet and Ranoë,6 if it did not of itself
produce (without causing any evacuation) asthma in
general and spasmodic asthma in particular, as Murray,"
Geoffroy and W. Scott⁹ have observed it to do? Could
any clearer hints be given that medicines ought to be
applied to the cure of diseases according to the morbid
effects which they produce?
8
It would be impossible to conceive how ignatia could
be so efficacious in a certain kind of convulsions, as we
are assured it is by Hermann,10 Valentin,11 and an anony-
mous writer,12 if it did not possess the power of exciting
similar convulsions, as witnessed by Bergius,18 Camelli 14
and Durius.15
13
Persons who have been injured by a blow or a contusion
feel pains in the side, a desire to vomit, spasmodic lanci-
nating and burning pains in the hypochrondria, accom-
panied by anxiety, tremors and involuntary starts when
waking and in sleep, similar to those produced by an
electric shock, formication in the injured parts, &c. As
arnica montana produces similar symptoms, according to
the observations of Meza, Vicat, Crichton, Collin, Aaskow,
Stoll and J. C. Lange,16 it may be easily conceived that
this plant will cure the effects of a blow, fall or bruise,
1 Medic. Transact., i, No. 7, p. 39.
2 Diss. de Ipecac. refracta dosi usu, p. 34.
3 Praxis Medica, p. 346.
5 Journal de Médecine, Tom. 62, p. 137.
6 In Act. Reg. Soc. Med. Hafn., ii, p. 163; iii, p. 361.
7 Medic. Pract. Bibl., p. 237.
8 Traite de la matière médicale, ii, p. 157.
9 In Med. Comment. of Edinb., iv, p. 74.
10 Cynosura Mat. Med., ii, p. 231.
11 Hist. Simplic. Reform., p. 194, § 4.
12 In Act. Berol., dec. ii, vol. x, p. 12.
13 Materia Medica, p. 150.
14 Philos. Trans., vol. xxi, No. 250.
15 Miscell. Nat. Cur., dec. iii, ann. 9, 10.
16 Vide Materia Medica Pura, i.
4 Prælectiones, p. 221.
other physicians, vouch for the power of ipecacuanha to allay diarrhoea. But
how could it do this unless it had the power to cause purging (Murray) ?"
218
APPENDIX.
as is familiar to the experience of a host of physicians
and even of whole nations for centuries past.
.
2
3
4
Among the effects which belladonna excites when ad-
ministered to persons in sound health, are symptoms
which, taken collectively, present a picture greatly resem-
bling that species of hydrophobia and rabies canina which
Mayerne,¹ Münch, Buchholz and Neimike really cured.
in a perfect manner (homoeopathically) with this plant."
The futile attempts to sleep, the embarrassed respiration, the
anxious burning thirst for liquids which when presented to
the patient he rejects with violence; the flushed countenance,
fixed and sparkling eyes (as observed from belladonna by
F. C. Grimm), the suffocation caused by drinking with
inordinate thirst (according to E. Camerarius and Sauter);
the general inability to swallow anything (as affirmed by
May, Lottinger, Sicelius, Buchave, D'Hermont, Manetti,
Vicat and Cullen); the desire to bite those about him
alternating with terror (as seen by Sauter, Dumoulin,
Buchave and Mardorf); the inclination to spit all around
him (according to Sauter); and to run away (as we are
informed by Dumoulin, E. Gmelin and Buc'hoz); and
the continual moving about of the body (as witnessed by
Boucher, E. Gmelin, and Sauter).6 Belladonna has also
cured different kinds of mania and melancholy, as reported
by Evers, Schmucker, Schmalz, the two Münchs and
1 Praxeos in Morbis Internis Syntagma Alterum, Vienna, 1697,
p. 136.
2 Beobachtungen bei angewendeter Belladonne bei den Menschen, Stendal,
1789.
3 Heilsame Wirkungen der Belladonne in ausgebrochener Wuth, Erfurt,
1785.
4 In J. H. Münch's Beobachtungen, Th. i, p. 74.
5 If belladonna has frequently failed in cases of developed rabies, we
ought to remember that it can only cure the disease by similarity of
action, consequently it ought to be administered, like all homeopathic
remedies, only in the smallest possible doses (as is shown in the Organon,
§§ 275-283). But it was generally administered in monstrously large
doses, so that the patients necessarily died, not of the disease, but of the
remedy. However, it is probable that there is more than one degree or
species of hydrophobia and rabies, and consequently the most suitable
homœopathic remedy is sometimes hyoscyamus, and sometimes stramonium,
according to the symptoms.
6. Vide my Materia Medica Pura, art. Belladonna.
APPENDIX.
219
others, because it possesses the faculty of producing pecu-
liar kinds of insanity; such belladonna mental diseases are
are recorded by Rau, Grimm, Hasenest, Mardorf, Hoyer,
Dillenius and others.¹ Henning, after vainly endeavour-
ing, during three months, to cure a case of amaurosis
with coloured spots before the eyes by a variety of medi-
cines, at length arbitrarily adopted the idea that this
malady might perhaps be occasioned by gout (which the
patient had never had); and upon this supposition he
was, by chance as it were, induced to prescribe belladonna,³
which effected a speedy cure without any inconveni-
ence. He would undoubtedly have made choice of this
medicine at first had he known that it was not pos-
sible to perform a certain and permanent cure but by
the aid of a remedy which produces symptoms similar to
those of the disease itself; and that, according to this in-
fallible law of nature, belladonna could not fail to cure
this case homoeopathically, since, as Sauter and Buchholz5
witnessed, it excites a species of amaurosis with coloured
spots before the eyes.
4
6
Henbane* has cured convulsions which strongly resem-
bled and, indeed, were taken for epilepsy, as witnessed
by Mayerne, Stoerck, Collin and others. This it did
because it excites convulsions very similar to those of epi-
lepsy, as recorded in the writings of E. Camerarius, C.
Seliger, Hünerwolf, A. Hamilton, Planchon, A Costa and
1 Referred to in my Materia Medica Pura, loc. cit.
2 In Hufeland's Journal, xxv, 4, pp. 70-74.
3 Mere conjecture alone has led physicians to rank belladonna among the
remedies for gout. The disease which can, with propriety, be denominated
gout never will nor can be cured by belladonna.
4 In Hufeland's Journal, xi.
5 Ibid., vol. i, p. 252.
6 Prax. Med., p. 23.
*The first edition has:
"The sleeplessness usually kept up by anxiety mentioned by some
observers (Blom, Planchon) as occurring on the commencement of the action
of henbane, is obvionsly the sole reason for its great faculty for causing
sleep in similar idiopathic agrypnias, in which palliative hypnotic action,
according to Stoerck, it is greatly superior to opium.”
14
220
APPENDIX.
others.¹* Fothergill,2 Stoerck, Hellwig and Ofterdinger
have used hyoscyamus with success in certain kinds of
mental derangement. But many more physicians might
have used it successfully in such affections had they con-
fined it to the cure of that species of mental alienation
which hyoscyamus is capable of producing in its primary
action, viz. a kind of stupid mental derangement, that
Van Helmont, Wedel, J. G. Gmelin, La Serre, Hüner-
wolf, A. Hamilton, Kiernander, J. Stedmann, Tozzetti,
J. Faber and Wendt saw produced by this plant.3 From
the effects of hyoscyamus observed by the last-named
authors a picture of hysteria of considerable severity
may be constructed; and a very similar one would be
cured by this plant, as we find in J. A. P. Gessner,
Stoerck and in the Act. Nat. Cur.¹ Schenkbecher 5
would never have succeeded in curing a vertigo of twenty
years' standing with henbane if this plant were not
endowed by nature with the power of producing so
universally and in such intensity a similar vertigo, as
attested by Hünerwolf, Blom, Navier, Planchon, Sloane,
Stedmann, Greding, Wepfer, Vicat, and Bernigau. A
man, affected with jealous mania, was for a long time
uselessly teased with other drugs by Mayer Abramson,7
when, intending to give a soporific, he accidentally admi-
nistered hyoscyamus, which naturally affected a speedy cure.
Had he known that this plant excites jealousy and mania in
the healthy and had he been acquainted with homoeopathy
(the only natural rule of therapeutics), he would have
6
8
1 See Materia Medica Pura, vol. i.
2 Memoirs of Med. Soc. of London, i, pp. 310, 314.
3 See Materia Medica Pura, i, 670–3.
4 IV, obs. 8.
5 Von der Kinkina, Schierling, Bilsenkraut, &c., Riga, 1769, App., p. 162.
6 Vide Materia Medica Pura, vol. i.
7 In Hufeland's Journal, xix, 2, p. 60.
8 Vide Materia Medica Pura, vol. i ["Jealousy" is only given by
Hahnemann himself].
* The first edition has here:
((
Greding saw a dry spasmodic cough produced by this plant, and this
should teach us that it is a powerful remedy for similar cough, as indeed
Friccus, Rosenstein, Dubb and Stoerck found it to be."
APPENDIX.
221
been able to select hyoscyamus from the very commence-
ment with perfect confidence, and thus have avoided
tormenting the patient with drugs which, not being
homœopathic, could do no good in such a case. The mix-
ture of medicines which was employed with the greatest
success by Hecker¹ in a case of spasmodic closure of the
eyelids, would have proved ineffectual if some happy
chance had not included hyoscyamus, which, according to
Wepfer, excites a similar affection in healthy persons.
Neither did Witherings succeed in curing a spasmodic
constriction of the pharynx, with inability to swallow,
until he administered hyoscyamus which has a peculiar
power of causing a spasmodic constriction of the throat
with inability to swallow, an effect which Tozzetti, Hamilton,
Bernigau, Sauvages and Hünerwolf undoubtedly saw it
produce in a high degree.*
2
4
5
How could camphor produce such extraordinary salu-
tary effects as the veracious Huxham says it does, in the
so-called low nervous fevers, where the temperature of
the body is lowered, the sensibility diminished and the
vital powers greatly depressed, if in its primary action
upon the body camphor were not able to produce a state
precisely similar, as observed by W. Alexander, Cullen
and F. Hoffman ? 6+
Strong wine in small doses cures, homoeopathically,
1 Hufeland's Journal, i, p. 354.
2 De Cicuta aquatica, Basel, 1716, p. 320. [Wepfer's observation is
"inability to open the eyelids."]
3 Edinb. Med. Comment., dec. 2, vol. vi, p. 263.
4 See Mat. Med. Pura, vol. i.
5 Opera, t. i, p. 172; t. ii, p. 84.
6 See Mat. Med. Pura, vol. i.
* The first edition has this paragraph:
"The pains in limbs and joints which A. Richard (in P. Schenck)
experienced from aconite were of the same kind as those cured by many
physicians mentioned by Murray by means of the plant; so that the homoeo-
pathic cause of its remedial power is evident."
+ The first edition adds:
"The sensitiveness of the organism amounting to the most intense pain
combined with heat in influenza is quickly removed by camphor, but only
palliatively, hence its doses must be always increased and repeated in order
that it shall gain the mastery over this acute disease."
222
APPENDIX.
2
5
fevers of a purely inflammatory character, as C. Crivellati,¹
H. Augenius, A. Mundella³ and two anonymous writers*
observed.* Asclepiades cured an inflammation of the
brain with a small quantity of wine. A case of feverish
delirium like senseless intoxication, with stertorous breath-
ing, similar to the drunken state caused by wine, was cured
by Rademacher in a single night by wine.
Can anyone
fail to recognise here the power of an analogous medicinal
irritation (similia similibus) ?
A strong infusion of tea produces anxiety and palpita-
tion of the heart in persons who are not in the habit of
drinking it; on the other hand, if taken in small quantities,
it is an excellent remedy for such symptoms when pro-
duced by other causes, as testified by G. L. Rau."
8
A condition of convulsions without consciousness resem-
bling the death agony, alternating with attacks of spas-
modic and jerky, sometimes also sobbing and stertorous
respiration, with icy coldness of the face and body,
lividity of the feet and hands and feebleness of the pulse
(precisely resembling the symptoms of opium observed by
Schweikert and others), was at first treated unsuccessfully
by Stütz⁹ with potash, but afterwards cured in a speedy,
perfect, and permanent manner by opium. In this instance,
who can fail to recognise homeopathic treatment unwitt-
ingly employed? According to Vicat, J. C. Grimm and
others,10 opium produces an extreme and almost irresistible
tendency to sleep, accompanied by profuse perspiration and
¹ Trattato dell' uso e modo di dare il vino nelle febri acute, Rome, 1600.
2 Epist., t. ii, lib. 2, ep. 8.
3 Epist., xiv, Basil., 1538.
♦ Eph. Nat. Cur., dec. ii, ann. 2, obs. 53; Gazette de Santé, 1738.
5 Cal. Aurelianus, Acut., lib. i, c. 16.
6 In Hufeland's Journal, xvi, i, p. 92.
7 Ueber den Werth des homöopathischen Heilv., Heidelberg, 1824, p. 75.
[This paragraph appears only in the fourth edition.]
8 See Mat. Med. Pura, vol. ii.
9 In Hufeland's Journal, x, 4.
10 See Mat. Med. Pura, vol. ii.
* The first edition says:
"Strong wine often, as Murray testifies, allays a troublesome heat of the
body and the excessive excitement of the pulse-obviously homœopathically !"
1
APPENDIX.
223
delirium. This was the reason why Osthoff,¹ was afraid to
administer it in an epidemic fever which exhibited similar
symptoms, for the system he pursued prohibited the use
of it under such circumstances. (O wretched system !)*
It was only after having employed in vain all the known
remedies and seeing death imminent he resolved to try it
at all hazards, and behold! it was always efficacious, as
it must, in conformity with the eternal law of homoeo-
pathy. J. Lind² also avowed "that opium removes the
head troubles and the burning sensation in the skin and
difficulty of perspiring during the pyrexia; the head
becomes free, the burning febrile heat disappears, the skin
becomes soft and its surface bathed in a profuse perspi-
ration." But Lind was not aware that the salutary effect
of opium is (contrary to the axioms of the medical schools)
owing to the circumstance of its producing very similar
morbid symptoms in the healthy. There have, nevertheless,
been physicians here and there across whose minds this
truth passed like a flash of lightning without ever giving
birth to a suspicion of the homœopathic law of nature.
For example, Alston³ says that opium is a remedy that
excites heat, notwithstanding which it certainly diminishes
heat where it already exists. De la Guérène administered
opium in a case of fever attended with violent headache,
tension and hardness of the pulse, dryness and roughness
of the skin, burning heat, and hence difficult and debili-
tating perspirations, constantly interrupted by the extreme
restlessness of the patient. He was successful with this
remedy because opium possesses the faculty of creating an
exactly similar feverish state in healthy persons, of which
he knew nothing, though it is stated by many observers.5†
4
¹ In Salzburger Med. Chirurg. Zeitung, 1805, iii, p. 110.
2 Versuch über die Krankheiten denen die Europäer in heissen Klimaten
unterworfen sind, Riga and Leipzic, 1773.
3 In Edinb. Essays, v, pt. 1, art. 12.
4 In Römer's Annalen der Arzneimittellehre, 1, ii, p. 6.
5 See Mat. Med. Pura, vol. ii.
* This interjection appears first in the second edition.
+ The observations of Lind, Alston, De la Guérène, Wirthenson, Sydenham,
Marcus, De Meza, De Haen, Tralles, Lentilius, Wedel, Bell, Heister, Richter,
Bohn and F. Hoffmann appear first in the second edition.
224
APPENDIX.
.
3
4
5
6
7
In a fever where the patients were speechless, eyes open,
limbs stiff, pulse small and intermittent, respiration
laboured, snoring and stertorous, and deep somnolence
(all of which are symptoms perfectly similar to those which
opium excites, according to the report of Delacroix,
Rademacher, Crumpe, Pyl, Vicat, Sauvages and many
others,)¹ this was the only substance which C. L. Hoff-
mann² saw produce any good effects, which was quite
natural as it was homeopathic. Wirthenson, Sydenham
and Marcus have in like manner cured lethargic fevers
with opium. A case of lethargy whlch De Meza cured
would yield only to this substance, which, in such cases,
acts homoeopathically, since it produces lethargy itself.
C. C. Matthäi, in an obstinate case of nervous disease,
where the principal symptoms were insensibility and
numbness of the arms, legs and belly, after having for
a long time treated it with inappropriate, that is to say,
non-homoeopathic remedies, at length effected a cure by
opium, which, according to Stütz, J. Young and others,
causes similar states in an intense degree, consequently,
as every one must perceive, only cures homoeopathically.
The cure of a case of lethargy, of several days' duration,
which Hufeland performed by the use of opium, by
what other law could this have been effected, than by the
homœopathic, which has remained unacknowledged till
the present time? In a case of epilepsy where the fits
occurred only during sleep, De Haen discovered that it
was not a natural sleep, but a lethargic stupor with ster-
torous respiration, precisely similar to that which opium
produces in healthy persons; it was only by means of
opium that he transformed it into a healthy sleep, while at
8
¹ See Mat. Med. Pura, vol. ii.
2 Von Scharbock, Lustseuche, &c., Münster, 1787, p. 295.
3 Opii vires fibras cordis delibitare, &c., Münster, 1775.
Opera, p. 654.
4
5 Magazin für Therapie, 1, i, p. 7.
• Act. reg. soc. med. Hafn., iii, p. 202.
7 In Struve's Triumph der Heilk., iii.
8 See Mat. Med. Pura, vol. ii.
9 In Hufeland's Journal, xii, 1.
APPENDIX.
225
3
the same time he delivered the patient of his epilepsy.¹
How is it possible that opium, which, as every one knows,
of all vegetable substances is the one which in its primary
action (in small doses) produces the most severe and
obstinate constipation should be one of the most efficient
remedies in cases of constipation of the most dangerous
character, were it not by virtue of the homoeopathic thera-
peutic law so long unrecognised-that is to say, if nature
had not ordained that medicines should overcome and
cure natural diseases by their peculiar power of producing
similar affections? Opium, whose primary action in ob-
structing the evacuation of, and constipating the bowels,
was discovered by Tralles 2 to be the only cure for ileus,
after he had treated the patient ineffectually with purga-
tives and other unsuitable remedies. Lentilius and
G. W. Wedel,* Wirthenson, Bell, Heister and Richter 5 have
also confirmed the efficacy of opium in such cases, even
when administered alone. The honest Bohn was like-
wise convinced by experience that opiates were the only
remedies that would evacuate the contents of the bowels
in the colic called miserere; and the celebrated F. Hoff-
mann,' in the most dangerous cases of this nature, placed
his sole reliance on opium combined in the anodyne liquor
called after his name. Can all the theories contained in
the two hundred thousand medical books which cumber
the earth furnish us with a rational explanation of this
and so many other similar facts, seeing that they know
nothing about the homoeopathic law of cure? Have their
doctrines guided us to this law of nature that obtains in
every real, speedy and permanent cure, viz. that we should
employ for the cure of diseases medicines which show a
6
1 Ratio Medendi, v, p. 126.
2 Opii usus et abusus, sect. ii, p. 260.
3 Eph. Nat. Cur., dec. 3, ann. i, app., p. 131.
+ Opiologia, p. 120.
4
5 Anfangsgründe der Wundarzneikunde, v, § 328; Chronische Krank-
heiten, Berlin, 1816, ii, p. 220.
6 De Officio Medici.
• Medicin. rat. system., t. iv, p. ii, p. 297. [Hoffmann's Liquor anodynus
is composed of one part of ether to four parts of alcohol.]
15
226
APPENDIX.
similarity of effects when tested on healthy human
beings?
Rave¹ and Wedekind cured serious uterine hæmor-
rhages with savine, which, as every loose wench knows,
causes uterine hæmorrhage, and consequently abortion, in
healthy women. Could anyone, in this case, fail to
perceive the therapeutic rule of similarity, to wit, homœo-
pathy?
In that species of spasmodic asthma called after
Millar, how could musk cure almost specifically if it did
not of itself produce fits of spasmodic suffocating con-
striction of the chest without cough,* as observed by
F. Hoffmann 13
2
Could the cow-pox protect us from smallpox otherwise
than homœopathically? Without mentioning any other
traits of close resemblance existing between these two
maladies they have this in common: they generally
appear but once during the course of a person's life;
they leave behind similar deep cicatrices; they both
occasion tumefaction of the axillary glands, fevers that
are analogous, an inflamed areola round each pock, and
even ophthalmia and convulsions. The cow-pox would
on its first appearance even destroy the smallpox infec-
tion, therefore it would cure this malady when already
present if the smallpox were not stronger than it. To
produce this effect, then, it only wants that excess of
power which, according to the law of nature, ought to
accompany the homoeopathic resemblance in order to
effect a cure (§ 158). We can, therefore, only employ
this homoeopathic remedy previous to the appearance of
the stronger smallpox. When so employed it excites a
disease very similar (homœopathic) to the smallpox;
after it has run its course, as the human body can as a
¹ Beobachtungen und Schlüsse, ii, p. 7.
2 In Hufeland's Journal, x, i, p. 77, and in his Aufsätzen, p. 278.
3 Med. Ration. System., iii, p. 92.
* Millar's asthma (laryngismus stridulus) is not a constriction of the chest.
Stapf's symptom in the Mat. Med. Pura is more like it: "In the larynx,
sensation like sulphur vapour, with constriction of the windpipe."
†This paragraph ends here in first edition.
APPENDIX.
227
rule only be attacked once in its life with a disease of
this nature (cow-pox or smallpox), it is henceforward
protected for life against cow- or smallpox.¹
4
6
It is well known that retention of urine with strangury
is one of the most common and troublesome symptoms
cantharides produces, as has been more than suffi-
ciently testified to by J. Camerarius, Baccius, Van
Hilden, Forest, J. Lanzoni, Van der Wiel and Werlhoff."
Cantharides, cautiously administered internally, ought
consequently to be a very salutary homoeopathic remedy
in similar cases of painful dysuria. And this is in reality
the case. For without enumerating all the Greek physi-
cians who, instead of our cantharides, made use of meloë
cichorii, Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Capo di Vacca,
Riedlin, Th. Bartholin,³ Young, Smith,5 Raymond, De
Meza,' Brisbane, and others, performed perfect cures of
very painful ischuria that was not dependent upon any
mechanical obstacle, with cantharides. Huxham saw
this remedy produce the best effects in such cases; he
praises it highly, and would willingly have made use of
it had not the traditional precepts of the old school of
medicine (which, deeming itself wiser than nature and
experience, prescribes in such cases sedative and relaxing
remedies) prevented him, contrary to his own conviction,
from using a remedy which, in such cases, is specific, i. e.
homoeopathic. In cases of recent inflammatory gonor-
.
8
9
1 This mode of homoeopathic cure in antecessum (which is called precava-
tion and prophylaxis) also appears possible in some other cases. For example,
by carrying powdered sulphur in our clothes we are preserved from infection
by the itch of wool-workers; and by taking the smallest possible dose of
belladonna we are protected from the (now rare) smooth scarlet fever of
Sydenham, Withering and Plencitz when it prevails epidemically in the
neighbourhood.
2 See my Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis, Leipzic, 1805,
i, p. 83.
3 Epist., 4, p. 345.
4 Phil. Trans., No. 280.
5 Medic. Communications, ii, p. 505.
• In Auserlesene Abhandl. für pract. Aerzte, iii, p. 460.
• Act. reg. soc. med. Hafn., ii, p. 302.
8 Auserlesene Fälle, Altenburg, 1777.
9 Opera, edit. Reichel, t. ii, p. 124. [In the first edition it is said to
228
APPENDIX.
rhoea, where Sachs von Lewenheim, Hannaeus, Bartholin,
Lister, Mead and particularly Werlhoff administered
cantharides in very small doses with perfect success, this
substance manifestly removed the most urgent symptoms
of the commencing disease¹ by virtue of the faculty it
possesses (according to the testimony of almost every
observer) of exciting painful ischuria, scalding urine,
inflammation of the urethra (Wendt), and even when
merely applied externally, a species of inflammatory
gonorrhoea (Wichmann).º
3
4
The administration of sulphur internally very often
occasions, in persons of a sensitive disposition, tenesmus,
sometimes attended with vomiting and griping, as attested
by Walther. It is by virtue of this property which sulphur
possesses that physicians have been able to cure with it.
dysentery and hæmorrhoidal tenesmus, as observed by
Werlhoff, and, according to Rave,6 hæmorrhoidal colics.
It is well known that the Toeplitz waters, like all other
warm sulphurous mineral waters, often cause a so-called
cause and cure sciatica on the authority of Van Hilden, Hollerius, Riedlin,
Boerhaave, Tralles, Tissot, Medicus, Tode and others.]
¹ I say "the most urgent symptoms of the commencing disease" because
the subsequent treatment demands other considerations; for, although there
may have been cases of gonorrhoea so slight as to disappear very soon of
themselves and almost without any assistance whatever, still there are
others of a graver nature, especially that which has become so common
since the time of the French campaigns, which might be termed
condylomatous gonorrhea, and which is communicated by coitus like the
chancrous venereal disease, although it is of a very different nature. [The
first edition has not this note. In the second edition we have further
information about the sycotic disease: "The condylomata seldom come
alone without any discharge from the genitals, more frequently with
preputial or urethral blennorrhoea, especially when these are suppressed by
injections. It is a product of an infection of the whole organism and can
only be cured by internal remedies, but never by mercury. Besides the
genitals the condylomata affect the anus, the axilla, the hairy scalp and
especially the buccal cavity and the lips." This passage is omitted in the
later editions.]
2 Auswahl aus den Nürnberger gelehrten Unterhaltungen, i, p. 249, note.
3 Progr. de Sulphure et Marte, Lips., 1743, p. 5.
4 Medic. National-Zeitung, 1798, p. 153.
5 Observat. de Febribus, p. 3, § 6.
• In Hufeland's Journal, vii, 2, p. 168.
APPENDIX.
229
bath-rash which strongly resembles the itch of wool-
workers. It is precisely by means of this homoeopathic
power that these baths remove various kinds of psoric
eruptions. Can there be anything more suffocating than
sulphurous fumes? And Bucquet¹ found the fumes of
burning sulphur to be the best means of reanimating
persons in a state of asphyxia produced by other causes.
From the writings of Beddoes and others we learn
that the English physicians found nitric acid of great
utility in salivation and ulceration of the mouth occa-
sioned by the use of mercury. This acid could never
have proved useful in such cases if it did not of itself
excite salivation and ulceration of the fauces. To pro-
duce these effects, it is not necessary to administer it by
the mouth, merely bathing the surface of the body with
it suffices, as Scott and Blair observed.
The same
effects have also been observed from its internal adminis-
tration, by Aloyn, Luke, J. Ferriar and G. Kellie."
2
3
4
5
6
9
Fritze³ saw a species of tetanus produced by a bath
containing caustic potash, and Alex. von Humboldt by the
application of a solution of salt of tartar (which is a sort
of semi-caustic potash) was able to increase the irritability
of the muscles to such a degree as to excite tetanic con-
vulsions. Could the curative power which caustic potash
exercises in that kind of tetanus, in which Stütz* and
others have found it so useful, be accounted for in a more
simple or rational manner than by the homoeopathic
similarity of its effects?
Arsenic, whose effects are so powerful upon the human
1 Edinb. Med. Comment., ix.
2 In Hufeland's Journal, iv, p. 353.
3 Neueste Erfahrungen, Glogau, 1801.
4 In the Mémoires de la Soc. Méd. d'émulation, i, p. 195.
5 In Beddoes.
-
6 In the Sammlung auserles. Abhandl. für pract. Aerzte, xix, 2.
7 Ibid., xix, 1, p. 116.
8 In Hufeland's Journal, xii, 1, p. 116.
9 Versuch über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser, Posen and Berlin,
1797.
* Stütz used opium in conjunction with it.
230
APPENDIX.
4
6
health that we cannot decide whether it is more horrible
in the hands of the rash than admirable in those of the
prudent,―could never have effected so many remarkable
cures of cancer in the face, as witnessed by numerous
physicians, among whom I will only cite Fallopius,'
Bernhardi² and Roennow,³ if this metallic oxide did not
possess the homoeopathic power of producing in healthy
persons, very painful tubercles very difficult to cure, as
witnessed by Amatus Lusitanus; deep burrowing malig-
nant ulcerations, according to the testimony of Heinrich5
and Knape; and cancerous ulcers, as recorded by Heinze."
The ancients would not have been so unanimous in their
praise of the arsenical, so-called magnetic plaster of
Angelus SalaⓇ in plague buboes and carbuncles, if arsenic
did not, according to the observations of Degner and
Knape,10 give rise to inflammatory swellings which quickly
become gangrenous and to black pocks, as observed by
Verzaschall and Pfann.12 Aud whence does it derive
its curative power, demonstrated so many thousands of
times, in certain forms of intermittent fever (though it
was not employed with due caution) and highly extolled
for centuries, first by Nicholas Myrepsus and subse-
quently by Slevogt, Molitor, Jacobi, J. C. Bernhardt,
Jüngken, Fauve, Brera, Darwin, May, Jackson and
Fowler, if it were not based on the power of arsenic
to cause a peculiar fever, as almost every observer
of the deleterious effects of this substance has distinctly
9
1 De ulceribus et tumoribus, lib. 2, Venice, 1563.
2 In the Journal de Médecine, Chirurg. et Pharm., lvii, March, 1782.
3 Konigl. vetensk. acad. Handl. f. a. 1776.
4 Obs. et cur., cent ii, cur. 34.
5 Act. nat. cur., ii, obs. 10.
6 Annalen der Staatsarzneikunde, i, 1.
7 Vide an article by Ebers in Hufeland's Journal for September, 1813,
p. 48.
› Anatom. Vitrioli, tr. ii in Opera med. chym., Frankfort, 1647, pp. 381,
463.
9 Act. nat. cur., vi.
10 Annalen der Staatsarzneikunde, loc. cit.
11 Obs. med. cent., Basel, 1677, obs. 66.
12 Samml. merkwürd. Fälle, Nürnberg, 1750, pp. 119, 130.
APPENDIX.
231
2
remarked, especially Amatus Lusitanus, Degner, Buch-
holz, Heun and Knape ?¹ We may confidently believe
E. Alexander, when he tells us that arsenic is a sovereign
remedy in some kinds of angina pectoris, since Otto
Tachenius, Guilbert, Preussius, Thilenius and Pyl have
seen it give rise to oppression of the respiration, Greiselius³
to a dyspnoea almost amounting to suffocation; and
Majault* in particular, saw it produce sudden attacks of
asthma excited by walking, attended with great depression
of the vital powers.
5
6
The convulsions caused by copper, and, according to
Tondi, Ramsay, Fabas, Pyl and Cosmier, by the inges-
tion of things containing copper; the reiterated attacks
of epilepsy which J. Lazerme saw result from swallowing
a copper coin, and which Pfündel saw produced by
copper, sufficiently explain to the reflecting physician
how copper has been able to cure a kind of chorea, as
reported by R. Willan, Walcker, Thuessink, and
Delarive, 10 and epilepsy, of which Batty, Baumes, Bierling,
Boerhaave, Causland, Cullen, Duncan, Feuerstein, Hel-
vetius, Lieb, Magennis, C. F. Michaelis, Reil, Russell,
Stisser, Thilenius, Weissmann, Weizenbreyer, Whithers
and others have recorded so many striking cures by prepa-
rations of copper.
7
8
9
.
If Poterius, Wepfer, Wedel, F. Hoffmann, R. A. Vogel,
Thierry and Albrecht have cured a species of phthisis,
hectic fever, chronic catarrh and humid asthma with tin,
it is because this metal possesses the faculty of producing a
1 See Mat. Med. Pura, vol. i.
2 Med. Comm. of Edinb., dec. ii, t. i, p. 85.
3 Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. i, ann. 2, p. 149. [Tachenius and Greiselius from
inhalation of the sublimated metallic acid.]
4 In the Sammlung auserles. Abhandl. für Aerzte, vii, 1. [Majault's words
"Much lassitude and oppression of the breath in walking."]
are,
5 De morbis internis capitis, Amsterdam, 1748, p. 253.
6 In Hufeland's Journal, ii, p. 264; and according to the testimony of
Burdach, in his System d. Arzneien, i, Leip., 1807, p. 284.
7 Sammlung auserles. Abhandl., xii, p. 62.
8 Ibid., xi, 3, p. 672.
• Waarnemingen, No. 18.
10 In Kühn's Phys. Med. Journal, January, 1800, p. 58.
232
APPENDIX.
species of phthisis, as G. E. Stahl¹ observed. And how
could it cure pains of the stomach, as Geischläger says it
does, if it were not capable of exciting a similar malady?
Geischläger himself," and Stahl before him, have proved
that it does possess this power.*
3
4
5
The evil effects of lead, which produces the most
obstinate constipation and even ileus (as Thunberg,
Wilson, Luzuriaga and others observed), do they not
also give us to understand that this metal possesses a
corresponding curative power? Ought not lead, as
surely as every other medicine in the world, by virtue
of its disease-causing power, to subdue and cure in a per-
manent manner (homoeopathically) similar natural diseases?
Certainly it ought! Angelus Sala cured a species of
ileus, and J. Agricola another dangerous constipation
by administering this metal internally. The saturnine
pills with which many physicians (Chirac, Van Helmont,
Naudeau, Pererius, Rivinus, Sydenham, Zacutus
Lusitanus, Bloch and others) cured the iliac passion and
other obstinate constipations, did not operate merely in a
mechanical manner by reason of their weight (for, if such
had been the cause of their efficacy, gold, whose weight
is greater than than of lead, would have been preferable),
but the pills acted specially as a saturnine internal
remedy and cured homoeopathically. If Otto Tachenius
and Saxtorph† formerly cured obstinate hypochondriacal
sufferings with the aid of lead, we ought to bear in mind
that this metal tends of itself to cause hypochondriacal
1 Mat. Med., cap. vi, p. 83.
2 In Hufeland's Journal, January, 1800, p. 58.
3 Mat. Med., loc. cit.
4 Opera, p. 213.
5 Comment. in J. Poppii Chym. Med., Lips., 1638, p. 223.
* The first edition has the following:
"C
Amelung's cure of a kind of ulcerative pulmonary disease by the internal
employment of lead points to the tendency of this metal to cause a kind of
consumption when applied externally, which Boerhaave observed."
+ In the first edition Ettmüller is given as the authority in place of
Saxtorph.
APPENDIX.
233
ailments, as may be seen in the description Lazuriaga
gives of its ill effects.¹
3
4
6
8
9
We ought not to be surprised that Marcus speedily
cured an inflammatory swelling of the tongue and of
the pharynx with a remedy (mercury) which, according to
the daily experience of many physicians, has a specific
tendency to produce inflammation and tumefaction of the
interior of the mouth, phenomena to which it gives rise
when merely applied to the surface of the body in the
form of ointment or plaster, as witnessed by Degner,
Friese, Alberti,5 Engel and others. The weakening of
the intellectual faculties (Swediaur 7), imbecility (Degner ³)
and mental alienation, which Larry observed from the
use of mercury, joined to the almost specific faculty
which this metal is known to possess of exciting saliva-
tion, explain how W. Perfect 10 was enabled, by the use
of mercury, to cure in a permanent manner a
case of
melancholia alternating with increased secretion of saliva.
How was it preparations of mercury proved so success-
ful in the hands of Seelig,¹¹ in the treatment of cynanche
tonsillaris accompanied with purpura; in those of
Hamilton,¹² Hoffmann,13 Marcus,14 Rush,15 Colden,16 Bailey
and Michaelis,17 in the treatment of other bad forms of
sore throat? Evidently because this metal is capable of
producing a species of sore throat of the worst descrip-
5 Jurisprudentia Medica, v, p. 600.
6 Specimina Medica, Berlin, 1781, p. 99.
7 Traité des Malad. vénér., ii, p. 368.
8 Loc. cit.
2
1 Recueil périod. de littérature, i, p. 20.
2 Magazin, ii, 2.
3 Act. Nat. Cur., vi, App.
4 Geschichte und Versuche einer chirurg. Gesellschaft, Copenhagen, 1774.
9 Mémoires et Observations in the Description de l'Egypte, tom. i.
10 Annalen einer Anstalt für Wahnsinnige, Hanover, 1804.
11 In Hufeland's Journal, xvi, 1, p. 24.
12 Edinb. Med. Comment., ix, 1, p. 8.
13 Medic. Wochenlbatt, 1787, No. 1.
14 Magazin für Specielle Therapie, ii, p. 334.
15 Medic. Observ. and Inquir., No. 6.
16 Medic. Observ. and Inquir., i, No. 19, p. 211.
17 In Richter's Chirurg. Bilbioth., v, pp. 737-739.
234
APPENDIX.
2
4
tion.' It was certainly by homoeopathic means that
Sauter, cured an ulcerous inflammation of the mouth
accompanied with aphthæ and flow of foetid saliva, when
he prescribed a solution of corrosive sublimate as a
gargle, and that Bloch³ removed aphthæ by the use of
mercury, since besides other ulcerations of the mouth this
substance particularly produce a species of buccal aphthæ,
as we are informed by Schlegel and Th. Acrey ?5
Hecker® used various medicinal compounds successfully in
a case of caries occurring after smallpox. Fortunately
all these mixtures contained mercury, to which it may be
imagined that this malady will yield (homœopathically),
because mercury is one of the few medicinal agents
which can cause caries, as proved by the many excessive
mercurial courses used in the treament of venereal and
other diseases, such as those detailed by G. P. Michaelis.7
This metal, the prolonged use of which is so dangerous
on account of its tendency to cause caries, exercises not-
withstanding a very salutary homoeopathic influence in
the caries which follows mechanical injuries of the bones,
some very remarkable cases of which have been recorded
by J. Schegel, Jördens, and J. M. Müller.10
The cure
8
9
¹ Physicians have likewise endeavoured to cure the croup by means of
mercury; but they generally failed in the attempt, because this metal
cannot produce, in the mucous membrane of the windpipe, a change similar
to that particular modification which is present in this disease.* Hepar
sulphuris calcareum, which excites cough by impeding respiration, but still
better, as I found, the tincture of burnt sponge (v. Mat. Med. Pura, ii, 85,
143), act more homoeopathically in their special effects, and are consequently
much more efficacious, particularly when administered in the smallest doses.
2 In Hufeland's Journal, xii, 2.
3 Medic. Bemerkungen, p. 161.
In Hufeland's Journal, vii, 4.
5 Lond. Med. Journ., 1788.
6 In Hufeland's Journal, i, p. 362.
7 Ibid., June, 1809, vi, p. 57.
8 Ibid., v, pp. 605, 610.
9 Ibid., x, 2.
10 Obs. Med. Chirur., ii, Case 10.
* In the first three editions mercury is credited with the power of producing
and curing membranous croup.
APPENDIX.
235
of non-venereal caries of another kind, which was like-
wise effected by means of mercury by J. F. W. Neu¹ and
J. D. Metzger, furnishes a fresh proof of the homoeo-
pathic curative virtue of this metal.
2
3
4
5
In perusing the works which have been published on
the subject of medical electricity it is surprising to see
what analogy exists between the morbid symptoms some-
times produced by this agent and the natural diseases
which it has cured homœopathically in a durable manner.*
Innumerable are the authors who have observed that
acceleration of the pulse is among the primary effects of
positive electricity; Sauvages, Delas and Barillon
have seen febrile paroxyms excited by electricity. The
faculty it has of producing fever is the reason why Gardini,"
Wilkinson, Syme and Wesley were able to cure a kind
of tertian fever with it alone, and why Zetzel¹0 and
Willermoz 11 could cure quartan fevers. It is also known
that electricity occasions a contraction of the muscles
which resembles a convulsive movement. De Sans 12 was
even enabled by it to excite continued convulsions in the
7
8
9
10
1 Diss. Med. Pract., Goettinge, 1776.
2 Adversaria, pt. 2, sect. 4.
3 In Bertholon de St. Lazare, Medicinische Electrisität, von Kühn, Leip.,
1788, pt. 1, pp. 239, 240.
4 Ibid., p. 232.
5 Ibid., p. 233.
6 Ibid., p. 232.
7 Ibid., p. 251.
8 Ibid., p. 250.
9 Ibid., p. 249.
10 Ibid., p. 52.
11 Ibid., p. 250.
12 Ibid., p. 274.
* The first edition has the following:
“I say nothing here about the cures which electricity, as an oppositely
acting medicine a sometimes effected in recent cases of loss of sensation-
apoplexy, paralysis and amaurosis-in robust persons, because, like other
palliatives, in the nature of things, it is never able to do this in this opposite
manner in old chronic paralyses and amauroses. I only speak of its homœo.
pathic action.
-
"a It is only in the secondary action of very violent and monstrous
electrical shocks that there are observed traces of paralysis of the limbs, loss
of sensation, and paralysis of the nerves of hearing and sight."
236
APPENDIX.
3
arm of a young girl as often as he pleased. It is by
virtue of this power of causing convulsive movements
which electricity possesses that De Sans¹ and Franklin2
applied it successfully in morbid convulsions, and that
Theden cured with its aid a girl, ten years of age, who
had lost her speech and partially the use of her left arm
by lightning, and yet was subject to a constant involuntary
movement of the arms and legs, and a continued spasmodic
contraction of the fingers of the left hand.* Electricity
likewise produces a kind of sciatica, as observed by Jallo-
bert* and another; it has also cured this affection by
similarity of effect (homoeopathically), as confirmed by
Hiortberg, Lovet, Arrigoni, Daboueix, Manduyt, Syme
and Wesley. Several physicians have cured a species of
ophthalmia by electricity, that is to say, by means of the
power which it possesses of exciting similar inflammations
of the eyes, as observed by Patrick Dickson and Bertholon."+
Finally, it has in the hands of Fushel cured varices; and
it owes this sanative virtue to the faculty which Jallobert
ascribes to it of producing varicose tumours.‡
5
6
8
1 In Bertholon de St. Lazare, Medicinische Electrisität, von Kühn, Leip.,
1788, pt. 1, p. 274.
2 Recueil sur l'électr. médic., ii, p. 386.
³ Neue Bemerkungen und Erfahrungen, iii.
4 Expériences et Observations sur l'électricité.
5 Philos. Trans., vol. lxiii.
• Bertholon, loc. cit., p. 466.
7 Ibid., ii, p. 296.
8 Loc. cit.
* The first edition does not give this observation of Theden, but instead it
gives the following:
"Hamilton and De Haen saw electricity produce rheumatic pains, and
such pains have been homoeopathically and permanently cured in innumerable
instances, as testified to by a great number of physicians and naturalists.”
The first edition has--
G
"Buisson saw an induration of the mammary glands removed by light-
ning, and Manduyt cured indurated cervical glands with electricity; he
could not have done this if this agent were not able to cause swelling of the
cervical glands as observed by De Haen."
The first edition has the following:
"The galvanic metallic current which possesses the power (as Ritter,
Bischoff and Geiger assert) of shortening the muscles (the positive pole
acts on the extensor, the negative on the flexor muscles) was able to cure
easily and completely in a few days a case of aphasia of thirteen years'
APPENDIX.
237
Albers relates that a warm bath at 100° Fahr. greatly
reduced the burning heat of an acute fever with a pulse
of 130 per minute, and that it brought the pulse down to
110. Löffler found hot fomentations very useful in
encephalitis occasioned by insolation or the action on the
head of the heat of stoves, and Callisen found compresses
of hot water on the head the most efficacious of all reme-
dies in inflammation of the brain.*
1
2
1 In Hufeland's Journal, iii, p. 690.
2 Act. soc. med., Hafn., iv, p. 419.
standing (Hufel. Journ., xxiv) which was caused by a stiffness of the
tongue. The dose employed was a small one (a single pair of plates) for the
cure was homœopathic. The intolerable burning pricking pain which, as is
well known, galvanism produces, after the circuit is closed, in every sensitive
part of our body, explains why a kind of tic douloureux could be cured by a
physician by means of the voltaic pile."
* Hahnemann's first homoeopathic essay, "On a New Principle, &c.,"
published in 1796 (Lesser Writings, 295), contains twenty-four of these
examples of homoeopathic treatment in the old school, viz. verat., tabac.,
agar., millef., nux m., rhus, dulc., sol. n., samb., scilla, stram., chin., ipec.,
ignat., arnica, bell., hyos., camph., op., dig., ars., val., plumb., merc., besides
twenty-nine others not given above, viz. con., æth., cic., cocc., paris, coff.,
nux vom., viola, olean., ner. antidys., rhod., led., tax., acon., hell., anem. prat.,
geum, prun. p., lauroc., amygd., dros., æsc., phytol., ulmus, cann., croc., lol.
tem., sabad., rheum. His observations on these drugs are well worth
attention; even those common to the two works are often differently treated.
Unfortunately the earlier work contains no, or very few, references to the
sources whence the observations are derived.
To p. 40:
In the fourth edition this paragraph has the following ending:
"If we deduct these, we find that among hundreds of
cases treated by these inappropriate methods a single one,
by the grace of a kind Providence, was cured rapidly and
permanently."
To p. 43:
This long note about isopathy is only found in the fifth edition.
To p. 45:
This illustration occurs also in the Med. of Exp., p. 518, note, and again
p. 526.
To p. 46:
In the Med. of Exp. (p. 524) this passage is quoted more fully.
To p. 46:
This passage is also given in the Med. of Exp., p. 525.
238
APPENDIX.
Organon.
In the subjoined table the reader will see at a glance where the aphorisms
of the several editions correspond or vary. The comparison includes the
Medicine of Experience, but as this precursor of the Organon was not
arranged in numbered paragraphs, it is referred to by the pages of the
Lesser Writings, where a translation of it will be found.
M. E.
501
Do.
505
1st. 2nd and 3rd. 4th.
8
9
10}
1234567
123456
123456
1234
11 9
12 10
13
14
15
16
17
18
7
8
19
20
21
25
1
11
12
13
(14
15
16
17
18
19
20
22* **
23
24
7
8
9
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
n. to 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
29. 22
25
26
21 n. to 21 n. to 26
22
27
23
28
24
29
30
27
5th.
28
29
30
31
15 CO
6
7
n. to 7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
1
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
31
32
33
34
35
36
M.E.
510
511
}{
1st. 2nd and 3rd. 4th.
32
32
512
513}
24
26
27
22
23
28
29
30
[31
32
33
34
35
36
37
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
n. to 16
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
33
34
10 6
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
******
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
5th.
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
9999
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
APPENDIX.
239
M.E.
519
to
523
506
to
510
1st. 2nd and 3rd. 4th.
66 {51
50
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
(260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
38
39
407
41
42
43
44
2****5
45
46
47
48
49
50
517
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
(63
64
1685
67
68
67
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
66 93
63
64
65
66
67
n.to78n.to 68 n.to 67
68
69
70
71
61
62
63
94
68 95
69 96
70 97
71
98
72
99
73
100
79
80
81
82 67
83
5685
64
66
6888
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
5th.
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
86
87
n. to 83 n. to 74 n.to 81
72
2 3
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
M.E.
1st, 2nd and 3rd. 4th.
74
101 88
75
102
89
76
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
n. to 95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
104
105
103
106
107
110
108
514
to {
516 109
111
112
113
1141
115
116
117
118
103
104
105
106
107
108*
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
(117
118
119
100
101
102
103
104
125
126
105
106
107
133 121
134 122
5th.
144 132
145
95
96
97
98
99
120 108
115
121
109
116
122
110
117
123
111
118
124
112 119
133
146 134
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
113
120
114 121
127
115
122
128
116
123
129
117
124
130
118
125
131 119
126
132 120
112
113
114
127
128
135 123
136 124
130
137 125
131
138
126 132
139
127 133
140 128 134
141 129 135
130 136
142
143 131
137
129
138
139
140
147 135 141
*The third edition has an additional paragraph marked § 1086, identical
with § 96 of the fourth and § 103 of the fifth edition.
240
APPENDIX.
M.E.
514
to
516
con.
1st. 2nd and 3rd. 4th. -
148
119
120
121
122
516
to
519 | 127
536
123
124
125
126
128
129
}
130
131
n. to 131
539 132
153
154
155
n. to 135 n. to 141
149
136
142
150
137
143
151
138
144
152 139 145
140
141
142
156 143
157
144
158
145
159 146
160 147
161 148
162 149
163
150
164 151
165 152
166
153
167* 154
155
133 168 156
134 169 157
135 170 158
136 171 159
137 172 160
138 173 161
139
174 162
140 175 163
141 176 164
142 177 165
143 178 166
144 179 167
168
5th.
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
145 180
146 181 169
147 182 170
148 183 171
149 184 172
150 185 173
176
151 186 174
177
152
187 175
178
153
188 176 179
154
189 177 180
155 190 178 181
156 191 179 182
157 192 180 183
158 193 181 184
172
173
174
175
M.E.
1st.
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
8}
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
52}
2nd and 3rd.
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
204
205
206
207
208
is
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
219+
220
221
222
223
(224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
196 240
197 241
4th.
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
(200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
5th.
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
* The third edition has another paragraph numbered § 1676 identical with
§ 155 of the fourth and § 161 of the fifth edition.
+ The numeration is here incorrect in both editions, neither having any
§§ 216, 217 or 218.
APPENDIX.
241
M.E.
525
to
531
1st.
198
n. to 198
537
538
199
2nd and 3rd.
242
200
201
202
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
243
244
245
246
247 n.to229 n.to232
248
249
250
251
261
262
203
204 263
205
264
206 265
207
266
208 267
209
268
210
269
211
270
4th.
223
224
J 225
226
227
228
229
212
271
213
272
214 273
215
274
216
275
217 276
277
218
278
219 279
220
280
221
281
5th.
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
230
233
231 234
232
235
233
236
234
237
235
238
236
239
237
240
241
242
243
244
245
238
239
240
2417
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
249 250
250
(246
247
248
n.to 250 251
251
252
252
253
253
254 254
255 255
256 256
257 257
M.E. 1st.
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
541.
530
230
231
232
n. to 232
233
534 234
to 235
536236
237
2387
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
530
to
532
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258J
1259
2nd and 3rd. 4th.
282
258
283
259
284
260
285
261
286
262
287
263
288
264
289
265
290
266
291
267
292
268
293
269
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318*
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
5th.
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
277 279
278
280
279 281
280
282
281
283
274
275
282
284
283
285
284 286
285
287
288
289
290
291
292
276
277
278
293
294
* The third edition has two additional paragraphs about mesmerism
identical with the last two of the later editions.
16
242
APPENDIX.
To title:
The first edition only has a second title for the aphorisms. It is as
follows:
"Organon of the Rational System of Medicine according
to Homœopathic Rules."
To § 1:
In the "Medicine of Experience" (Lesser Writings, p. 501) the sentence
corresponding to this runs thus :
"Medicine is a science of experience, its object is to
eradicate diseases by means of remedies."
In the first edition this aphorism stands thus:
""
§ 1. The physician has no higher object than to make
sick men well,-to cure, as it is termed."
The note to it appears first in the second edition.
To § 2:
rr
The first edition only adds in parenthesis “ (rational system of medicine).”
To § 3:
This aphorism is an expansion of this sentence in the "Med. of Expe-
rience" (L. W., 501) :
"The knowledge of diseases, the knowledge of reme-
dies and the knowledge of their employment constitute
the healing art.'
To § 4:
In the first four editions two paragraphs come in here. The following is
the final shape they assumed in the fourth edition :
"§ 5. It may be conceded that every disease is depend-
ent on an alteration in the interior of the human organism.
But this alteration is only guessed at by the understanding
in a dim and illusory manner from what the morbid sym-
ptoms reveal concerning it (and there are no other data
for it in non-surgical diseases); but the exact nature of
this inner invisible alteration cannot be ascertained in any
reliable manner.
"§ 6. The invisible morbid alteration in the interior
and the alteration in the health perceptible to our senses
(totality of the symptoms) together constitute to the eye
of creative Omnipotence what we term disease; but the
totality of the symptoms is the only side of the disease
turned towards the practitioner, this alone is it that is per-
ceptible to him and is the chief thing that he can know
APPENDIX.
243
respecting the disease, and that he needs to know to help
him to cure it."1
1 Note in first edition:
"Therefore I know not how that morbid alteration in diseases that takes
place in the interior of the body could have been considered as some-
thing extra-essential to the disease and existing independently, as a cause of
the disease, as its inner, proximate, first cause (prima causa). A thing or a
state requires a proximate cause only in order to be produced; but once it
is there it needs no longer for its existence an exciting, a first or a proximate
cause.
"Thus, then, the disease, once it is produced, continues independently of
its proximate producing cause, and needs the latter no longer for its main-
tenance. How then can its removal be held to be essential to the cure of
the disease? It is impossible that a prima causa of its flight should adhere to
the flying bullet, and the alteration we can observe in it is only an altered
kind of existence-an altered state; and it would be more than ridiculous to
assert that we cannot radically remove this state, that we cannot bring the
bullet to rest unless we first investigate the prima causa of its flight, and
then remove this metaphysically ascertained prima causa—or remove the
alterations produced in the inner essence of the bullet, on which its flight
depends.
CC
Nothing of the sort! A single impulse of equal power opposed to the
exact direction of the bullet's flight brings it instantly to rest, without any
metaphysical, impossible investigation into the inner essence of the state of
the bullet in its flight.
We only need to know accurately the symptoms of the flight of the
bullet that is to say, the force and the direction of its motion-in order to
set against this state an opposing counter-force of equal power, and thus
bring it instantly to rest.
"This (be it said in passing) is at the same time an example of the way in
which other alterations of the abnormal states of physical things may be
naturally effected—namely, by their exact opposites. Thus boiling water is
rapidly reduced to a moderate temperature by the addition of a certain
quantity of snow, thus an acid loses its acidity by opposing to it an alkali,
and becomes a neutral salt-the over-stretched strives to contract itself, the
compressed to expand itself-the too dry absorbs moisture from the air, &c. ;
and thus most of the alterations of the abnormal states of physical things are
effected by nature by means of their opposites.
"But the vital organism of animals is subject to very different laws for
the removal of its morbidly altered state; here the law of opposites, suitable
for the alteration of non-vital physical nature, is of no avail.”
Ma
This note is repeated with variations in the second and third editions:
"Therefore I know not how it was possible that the idea could ever be
entertained, that what was to be cured in diseases must be sought for and
found in the hidden and unknowable interior, while it was boastfully and
absurdly pretended that, without bestowing any attention to the symptoms,
this alteration in the invisible interior could be ascertained, rectified by
medicines, and that this alone could be called radical and rational treatment.
244
APPENDIX.
"Is not, then, that which is cognizable by the senses in diseases identical
with what is incapable of being ascertained in the interior? Is not the
latter only the unattainable unknowable side, whilst the former is the obvious
side, perceptible with certainty to the sound senses, presented to us by nature
as the sole object for cure of the same disease? Who can contend for the
contrary? Does it not, therefore, look like insanity to hold that the object
to be cured is the unascertainable, invisible, inner condition of the disease,
the so-called prima causa morbi, while the side of the disease plainly per-
ceptible by our senses, the palpable symptoms that present themselves to us,
are to be rejected and contemned for curing purposes?
"It no doubt appears to be very learned, but it is nothing but the most
ludicrous bombast and stupidity conceivable. It would not be a bit more
unreasonable if, in order to dry a piece of wet paper, we thought we could not
do this effectually unless we first set about an investigation and consideration
of the inner nature of the humidity of water, and sought a remedy for the
moisture based upon our profound speculation. O no! Expose the paper to
the air until you see the signs of the wetness of the paper cognizable by the
senses disappear, until it no longer feels wet, has ceased to be transparent,
has regained its stiffness, and has lost the weight communicated to it by the
water; then your object is attained. Or do you perhaps believe that the
paper thus become so perfectly dry would have been dried in a more thorough
and scientific manner by that impossible and ridiculous method of a priori
investigation of the prima causa of humidity? Blockhead!
"But others understand by prima causa of the disease, which the eminent
speculative portion of the medical world imagine must be the sole object of
cure, some such inner, first or proximate cause attached to the disease in the
hidden interior, and which is the cause of its production and persistence,
consequently must be removed if the disease is to be radically cured. If this
is what is preferably to be understood by the term-for it seems as if the
medical school did not exactly know what is to be understood by its prima
causa morbi-this is an equally stupid idea, an unthinkable thing, for its
originating cause does not remain attached to either a physical or dynamic
living phenomenon, as an actual thing; and it would be absurd to attempt
to annihilate the phenomena by the removal of the originating cause which
is no longer connected with it, which no longer exists."
Here follows the same argument that appears in the first four paragraphs
of the note in the first edition given above. The note of the second and
third editions concludes here, the following being added in parenthesis :
“For the abnormal state of physical things is removed by its contrary, but
the morbid state of organisms endowed with life is brought into regular
order by an alteration effected by means of an artificial force capable of pro-
ducing a similar (homœopathic) state."
This note is abbreviated in the fourth edition to what we now see it in the
fifth as note to § 6.
To § 5:
This aphorism appears first in the fourth edition.
To § 6:
The first edition contains the following, omitted from the later editions:
APPENDIX.
245
((
§ 7. There must be a healing principle present in
medicines; reason feels it must be so. But its essential
nature is not ascertainable by us in any way-only its
phenomena and effects can be ascertained by experience."
To § 7:
This allusion to the "vital force" occurs first in the fifth edition.
To § 7 (2nd ref.):
§§ 9 and 10 of the first edition are combined in this aphorism with some
variations and additions in all later editions.
To § 8, note:
A translation of Hufeland's Homöopathie will be found in the Brit. Journ.
of Hom., xvi, 179.
In the first edition this note is preceded by another, which runs as follows:
"All exact experience teaches that a disease of any importance requiring
to be treated, almost never consists of one single symptom, and a single serious
symptom is almost never met with alone. Almost always there are several
noticeable morbid phenomena and deviations from the normal state present
in the patient, which all together constitute the unity of the entire
morbid condition, though at first sight some of them may seem to have no
relation to one another. A single slight symptom is not a disease requiring
medical aid."
To § 9:
§§ 9 to 16 expound the doctrine of the "vital force," which first appears
in the fifth edition. In place of these the first edition has the following:
"C
§ 12. The invisible morbid alteration in the interior
and the complex of symptoms observable from without
are consequently reciprocally and necessarily determined
by one another; both together constitute the disease in
its entirety that is to say, such a unity that the latter
stands and falls with the former, that they must exist
and disappear simultaneously, so that whatever is able to
produce the group of perceptible symptoms must likewise
have caused the thereto appertaining inner morbid change
(inseparable from the external morbid appearance)-other-
wise the manifestation of the symptoms were impossible—
and consequently whatever removes the totality of the
observable morbid phenomena must at the same time have
removed the morbid alteration in the interior of the organ-
ism, because the disappearance of the former without the
removal of the latter is not conceivable."
Then follows the note which in the fifth edition is transposed to § 17.
The second, third, and fourth editions reproduce this aphorism, with in-
significant variations.
246
APPENDIX.
1
In the last edition, throughout the work "vital force" is often substituted
for the words " organism," "body,'
organism," "body," "state of health” (Organism, Körper,
Befinden) of the previous editions, and the disparaging adjectives applied to
the vital force in the earlier editions are generally omitted in the last.
To § 17:
In the first edition the following note is appended to this aphorism :
"It is by the misuse of the desire implanted for nobler purposes in the
human mind to attain the infinite, that have arisen those rash incursions
into the domain of the impossible, those ingenious speculations respecting
the essential nature of the medicinal powers of drugs, vitality, the internal
invisible operations of the organism in health, and the alteration of the hidden
interior which causes disease—that is to say, respecting the inner nature and
essence of disease, falsely called the internal proximate cause.'
“But this remained a mere play of fancy and wit (physiogenic and patho-
genic poetry) because the fixed data necessary for obtaining a metaphysical
knowledge of the processes that go on in the interior of the living organism
are, and will for ever be, awanting. From the proximate we can pass by
degrees to the other data, until we come to the innermost primeval one, upon
which the Creator of man implanted the conditioning of the disease in the
holy place of that concealed workshop. All that mankind has ascertained
about animal magnetism, galvanism, electricity, attraction and repulsion,
earth's magnetism, caloric, gas and other chemical and physical phenomena, is
not of the slightest use in enabling us to give a comprehensive, distinct, and
fruitful explanation of even the meanest function in the healthy or diseased
living organism. What innumerable unknown forces and their laws may
there be in operation in the functions of the living organs of which we can
form no conception, and for ascertaining which we should require many more
senses than we have, and these endowed with infinite delicacy! All these
requisites for abstract investigations, all these fixed data and media are
withheld from mortal man, and it shows a misconception of human capa-
bilities and of what is required in the business of curing, when the physician
insists that the investigation of such things is necessary, the knowledge of
which is as unnecessary as he is created incapable of ascertaining them.
"As many profound thinkers as there were who devoted themselves to
this attempt to penetrate into the secrets of nature, so many baseless hypo-
theses full of contradictions arose. All history teaches this, and so does the
sound judgment of the best instructed minds. If only they had been of the
slightest use to practical medicine; if these speculations had only been able
to reveal the true remedy for the slightest disease, we might tolerate them!
So thought the honest and wise Sydenham :-' Quantulacumque in hoc
scientiæ genere accessio, etsi nihil magnificentius quam odontalgiæ aut
clavorum pedibus innascentium curationem edoceat, longe maximi facienda
est, præ inani subtilium speculationum pompa, quæ fortasse medico ad abi-
gendos morbos non magis ex usu futura est, quam architecto ad construendas
ædes musicæ artis peritia.'
"But what do we see? All imaginable theories about the functions and
the inner form and component parts of the living brain in healthy and
diseased states, all those innumerable speculations respecting the nature of
inflammations, all the hypotheses respecting the nature of water and caloric,
APPENDIX.
247
were never able, as long as the world has existed, to guess or indicate the
specific remedy for the phrenitis caused by sunstroke! Löffler discovered
it accidentally in the aspersion of the skin with hot water, and the rational
(homœopathic) system of medicine knows, by means of its simple maxims,
how to find this and other specific remedies easily and quickly, without meta-
physical elaboration, and without having to wait for the accident for perhaps
a thousand years or more."
To § 20:
§§ 20-24 are an expansion of §§ 16-18 of the first edition in all later
editions.
To § 22:
In the second and third editions only (§ 16) the following note occurs
here:
"The tincture of an ounce of good cinchona bark mixed with a couple of
pounds of water, and drunk in the course of one day, will certainly produce
a cinchona fever of several days' duration; and a tepid foot-bath of a solution
of arsenic will develop an arsenical fever of at least a fortnight's duration as
certainly as a residence in a marshy atmosphere in autumn excites an inter-
mittent fever such as is endemic in such localities. A girdle of mercurial
plaster (as was employed in old times) causes mercurial salivation quicker
than wearing the shirt of an itch-infected person produces the itch. A strong
infusion of elder flowers or a few belladonna berries are as surely patho-
genetic forces as inoculated variolous matter, or an adder's bite, or a great
fright."
This note forms § 32 of the first edition, with the following addition :
"And each of these influences can, because it is a disease-force, as soon
as it is opposed to a similar disease already present in the body for the
purpose of expelling it, become for the same reason a counter-disease-force, a
remedy; so that all that we term medicine is nought but a pathogenetic
force, and all true remedies are only forces which are able to produce
artificially a similar counter-disease in the organism, and thereby to remove
and annihilate the similar natural disease."
To § 25:
In the first edition the corresponding aphorism is differently worded:
((
§ 19. Now, as experience shows incontestably and
indubitably with regard to every medicine and every disease,
that all medicines cure without exception the diseases
with symptoms analogous to their own, radically and
permanently, we are justified in maintaining that the
remedial power of medicines depends on their symptoms
corresponding to those of the disease, or in other words:
every medicine which can show among the morbid phe-
nomena it produces in the healthy human body the most
of the symptoms manifest in a given disease, can cure the
disease in the most rapid, radical, and permanent manner.”
248
APPENDIX.
To § 26:
The corresponding aphorism in the first edition differs considerably from
this. It runs :
"§ 20. This eternal universal law of nature, that every
disease is annihilated and cured by an artificial disease
similar to it which the appropriate remedy has a tendency
to produce, depends on the maxim: That only one single
disease can exist in the body, hence one disease must
absolutely yield to another.”
""
This is followed by another aphorism that is omitted from other editions:
"§ 21. The organism receives from every disease a
peculiar derangement; it either cannot accept another
derangement from a new disease on account of its nature
being bound down to invariable laws of unity, or at least
not without letting the first morbid derangement depart;
if the new morbid derangement is unable to dislodge the
older one, and is forced too long upon the organism, the
two conjoin to form a single (third) disease, which is
termed a complicated disease.
This maxim is based on
the following facts.'
Then follows an aphorism which substantially resembles § 40 of the fifth
edition.
To § 26, note:
In the second and third editions these few words constitute an aphorism,
to which is attached a note from "In like manner" (in this note) to the end
of the note. The fourth edition has the same arrangement as the fifth.
To § 27:
§§ 27-35 appear first in the second edition.
To § 28:
The attempt at an explanation of the process by which the homoeopathic
remedy effects a cure is first made in the second edition, and differs con-
siderably from that given in the last editions.
There is no aphorism in the second and third editions corresponding to
§ 29 of the last two editions; and in place of § 30 we have the following
aphorisms:
""
"§ 24. The living human organism allows itself to be
deranged in its health and made ill much more easily and
strongly by medicines than by natural diseases. This
can be easily proved.
((
§ 25. For, 1st, diseases are cured by medicines, which
would not be possible unless the latter were more power-
ful, 2nd. The following is to be taken into considera-
a
APPENDIX.
249
tion various pathogenic causes act on us daily and hourly,
but they are unable to upset our equilibrium and to
make the healthy ill; the activity of the life-preserving
power within us tends to resist the most of them;¹ and
as a rule the individual remains sound. It is only
when these external noxæ are increased to a violent in-
tensity and attack us when we expose ourselves too much
to them that we are made ill, but only seriously so when
our organism has a particularly attackable weak side (dis-
position) which renders it more liable to be affected by
the (simple or complex) morbific cause present, and to be
altered and deranged in its health.
"In considering the action of morbific agents I exclude the great specific
miasms such as typhus fever, the plague of the Levant, the yellow fever of
America, and other infectious diseases, smallpox, measles, the smooth scarlet
fever, the purpura miliaris, the venereal chancrous disease, the ordinary and
the condylomatous gonorrhoea, the itch of wool-workers, &c., which do cer-
tainly possess the power of infecting human beings almost unconditionally.
I say almost, for even among them there are not a few exceptions.”
To § 29:
This aphorism appears first in the fourth edition.
To § 29 note:
Some years later, Hahnemann thought fit to offer a different explanation
of the mode in which the homoeopathic remedy effects the cure of a disease,
which would have probably been the one he would have adopted had he lived
to publish another edition of this work, and which I think it right to insert in
this place, not because the truth of the grand therapeutic rule we owe to
his genius can be at all affected by the validity of his explanation of it, but in
order that the reader may have the very latest ideas of the illustrious founder
of homoeopathy on the subject.
"It is undeniable," says he, "that our vital force is unable, without
the assistance of true remedies, discovered by human intelligence, to combat
even inconsiderable diseases of rapid course (if even it do not succumb to
them), and to re-establish a sort of health, without sacrificing a portion
(often a large portion) of the fluid and solid parts of the organism in
what is called a crisis, as I have elsewhere shown. How it actually does
this will remain for ever unknown to us; so much, however, is certain, that it
cannot overcome even these diseases in a direct manner, nor without such
sacrifices. The chronic diseases of miasmatic origin it cannot cure by itself,
even with such losses, and restore real health. But equally certain is it that
when by the true (homoeopathic) healing art, guided by human wisdom, it is
put in a position to overpower and to subdue (to cure) diseases by which it
is attacked, as well those of an acute as those of a chronic miasmatic cha-
racter, directly and without such sacrifices, without loss to the organism or
danger to life, it is always the vital force that conquers, just as the nativę
250
APPENDIX.
army which drives the enemy out of the country must be called the conqueror,
although it was assisted by foreign auxiliary troops. It is the organic vital
force of our bodies which itself cures natural diseases of all kinds, in a direct
manner and without such sacrifices, whenever, by means of the proper
(homœopathic) medicines, it is placed in a position to conquer, which, indeed,
it never could do without the auxiliary force, without this aid; for our
organic vital force, by itself, only suffices to preserve the vital operations in
good order as long as the individual is not morbidly deranged by the inimical
influence of pathogenic forces.
<<
By itself it is not a match for the latter; it opposes them with a power
scarcely equal to that which the inimical influence exerts upon it, and that
with various indications of suffering on its own part (which we term sym-
ptoms of disease), but by its own power it could never overcome the chronic-
disease enemy, as it cannot conquer even acute diseases without considerable
loss of portions of the organism, if it remain without assistance from without
by means of real remedial aid, to furnish which the Preserver of human
life has commissioned the intelligent physician.
"With a scarcely equal opposing power, I repeat, the vital force advances
against the hostile disease, and yet no enemy can be overcome except by a
superior power.
"The homœopathic medicine alone can supply the diseased vital principle
with this superior power.
"Of itself, this principle that animates us, this vital force, merely organic,
only designed for maintaining undisturbed health, opposes to the advancing
hostile disease only a weak resistance and, as the disease progresses and
increases in intensity, a greater resistance, but (at best) one that is only equal
to the hostile attack, in delicate patients not even equal, often only weaker;
for offering an overpowering, an innocuous opposition, it is not capable, not
intended, not created.
"But if, by means of the action upon it of homœopathic medicines, we
physicians can represent and oppose to this instinctive vital force its enemy
the disease, as it were increased, however little increased-and if in this
manner we magnify to the perception of the vital principle the picture of its
enemy the disease, by homoeopathic medicines that produce an imitation of
the original disease of illusive resemblance to it, we thereby, by degrees, cause
and compel this instinctive vital force gradually to increase its energy, and to
go on always increasing it more and more, until at length it becomes much
stronger than the original disease was, so that it can again become the
autocrat in its own organism, can again take the reins and direct the organism
on the way to health, whilst in the meantime the apparent increase of the
disease produced by the homoeopathic medicines disappears spontaneously,
whereon we, witnessing the re-established preponderance of the vital power,
that is to say, the re-established health, cease to administer these remedies.
<<
Incredibly great are the resources of the spirit-like vital principle im-
parted to man by the infinitely benevolent Creator, if we physicians did but
know how to keep it right in days of health by a properly regulated whole-
some regimen, and in diseases to summon it forth and stimulate it up to the
proper mark by pure homœopathic treatment." (Die chronischen Krankheiten,
second edition, pt. iv, p. 4; Düsseldorf, 1838.)
APPENDIX.
251
To § 31:
The aphorism corresponding to this in the second and third editions is
differently worded:
.
"§ 26. If the psychical and physical inimical forces
of nature which are termed morbific noxæ possessed an
unconditional power of morbidly deranging man's health,
as they are universally distributed they would leave nobody
sound; every one must be ill, and we should have no
idea of health. But as, on the whole, diseases are only
exceptional states in man's health, and as a concourse of
so many and varied circumstances and conditions both on
the side of the disease-forces and on that of the human
beings to be morbidly deranged are required before a
disease can be produced by its exciting causes, it follows
that man is so little liable to be affected by these noxæ
that they can never make him ill quite unconditionally,
and that the human organism is only capable of being
deranged by them into disease when it has a particular
disposition to be so affected."
To § 38:
This aphorism is an epitome of three aphorisms in the first edition (§ § 24,
26, 27). The substance of this aphorism, together with the illustrations
given, will be found in the Med. of Exp., pp. 510, 511.
To § 39:
There is nothing corresponding to this in the first edition.
To § 43:
Similar views to those expressed in §§ 43-46 will be found in the Med.
of Exp., pp. 510, 511.
§§ 28-30 of the first edition are in all the later editions expanded into
these four aphorisms.
To § 46, note:
The examples here alluded to are the following (second edition, § 41):
"A symptom peculiar to the itch disease when it has lasted long is asthma,
which not infrequently shows itself from time to time when the exanthem is
present, but most frequently breaks out in a terrible, spasmodic and dangerous
manner when the eruption has been driven off by external remedies before the
internal itch disease has been cured, which thereupon manifests its internal
symptoms. Hence a man who had suffered for thirty years from a spasmodic
asthma which often threatened suffocation, was at once homoeopathically
cured when he got the itch, which, as before said, can cause this symptom in
striking similarity, as Bonifax¹ testifies. And many more cases of violent
spasmodic asthma have been cured by the itch. All the maladies which
occur after the suppression of the eruption from the skin, after what is
252
APPENDIX.
termed driving back the itch (the writings of many observers abound in such
cases), are original symptoms proper to the itch disease, which remain
latent as long as this disease draws off to the skin in the form of an eruption
and thus silences its internal affection, but they return as soon as this
derivative channel is stopped by the topical drying up of the itch-exanthem.
Thus a large number of writers record the outbreak of phthisis pulmonalis
as occurring so immediately and rapidly after the suppression of the itch-
eruption by external remedies, that we must undoubtedly recognise its
previous existence as being only hitherto kept in abeyance by the eruption.³
Since, then, a kind of pulmonary phthisis is contained among the symptoms of
the itch disease, we cannot be surprised that its inoculation has succeeded in
curing homœopathically already-existing phthisis, as Fr. May' and the author
in the Eph. Nat. Cur.5 relate.
« 1 In Recueil d' Observ. de Médecine, par Hautesierck, Paris, 1672, Tom. ii.
" In Eph. Nat. Cur., Dec. iii, ann. 5, 6, Obs. 117.-Bang, Auswahl aus
dem Tagebl. d. k. Krankenhauses, 1785, Mai.-Muzell, Beob. Samml., ii,
pp. 32-36 [An abstract of this case is given in the Chron. Krank., i, 23,
note. It is as follows:-" A man aged between thirty and forty had had
long ago the itch, which was driven off by inunctions; from which time he
gradually became more and more asthmatic. At length his breathing became
very short and difficult, even when he did not move, and he had constantly a
whistling sound, but little cough. He was given a clyster of a drachm of
squill and a powder containing three grains of squill for internal use. But
he made a mistake and drank the drachm of squill. He became dangerously
ill, with indescribable nausea and retching. But soon afterwards the itch
reappeared on hands, feet and all over the body in great quantity, where-
upon the asthma was at once removed."]
દ
"3 E. g. Unzer, Arzt, ccc, p. 508. [This case is given in the Chr. Krank.,
i, 28, note 27:-" A candidate for the ministry, apparently robust, was to
preach next day, and for this reason he wished to get rid of an itch of long
standing; so in the morning he rubbed himself over with itch ointment, and
after a few hours of suffering from anxiety, dyspnoea and tenesmus, immedi-
ately after his dinner, he died. Post-mortem examination showed the whole
lung filled with liquid pus."]
" Vermischte Schriften, Manh., 1786.
“5 Dec. ii, ann. 2, Obs. 146.”
To § 47:
Instead of §§ 47-50 the first edition has the following:
"§ 31. On this law of human nature, taught us by
experience, that diseases are annihilated and cured only
by similar diseases, is founded the great homœopathic
therapeutic law that a disease can only be annihilated and
cured by a medicine which has a tendency to produce a
similar disease—for the effects of medicine are nothing
but artificial diseases."
§ 32 is identical with the note given in the reference to § 22,
APPENDIX
253
"§ 33. When, in accordance with the rules of the
rational medical doctrine, we have found a medicine
thoroughly adapted to the disease under treatment, and
employ it as a remedy, by such an artificial disease-force
a new disease (counter-disease) is, as it were, inoculated and,
so to speak, forced upon the already diseased organism;
but, it must be confessed, this is a counter-disease possess-
ing great advantages over all natural counter-diseases.
"§ 34. The invisible influences by which the ordinary
diseases of humanity are usually produced are all too
little known, are all too little at our command to enable us
to produce by them diseases at our will, and use them as
remedies against many diseases of longer standing, so that
we can restore health when necessary.
"§ 35. Even the miasms that might be inoculated for
the removal of some diseases are too few to enable us to
make even a limited use of them as remedies.
"§ 36. Were we even able to produce many natural
diseases artificially and at will, these are either not suffi-
ciently analogous to the diseases to be cured, therefore not
helpful, or they are themselves of long duration, and when
they have actually conquered the older affection they are
apt to persist for a considerable time in the body, seldom
go off spontaneously, and generally require the aid of art
to compel them to disappear.¹
"1 Inoculated itch, for example, by means of which some chronic diseases
have occasionally been cured.
"§ 37. Infinitely more easily, more surely and with much
larger choice, can we employ for the purpose of curing
those pathogenic forces, usually termed medicines; the
counter-disease they excite (which is to remove the natural
disease we are called to treat) we can give in suitable
strength and duration, for we can regulate the size and
weight of their doses; and as every medicine differs from
all others and has a wide sphere of action, we have in the
large number of medicinal substances an innumerable
quantity of artificial diseases to hand, which we can with
accurate selection oppose to the diseases and infirmities
of human beings, and we are thus able to remove and
254
APPENDIX.
extinguish natural disease quickly and surely by means
of a very similar artificial counter-disease."
To § 52:
In the second and third editions seventeen paragraphs, from § 48 to § 64
inclusive, come in here, which are not in the fourth or fifth editions. Hahne-
mann evidently thought the matter was more appropriate for the Introduc-
tion, where we accordingly find it substantially.
To § 53:
In the fourth edition only this is preceded by the following:
""
§ 48. The true, mild, permanent cure of human dis-
eases is easily discovered by observing what takes place
in nature, so that, on the one hand, we may avoid every
process by which the unreasoning, merely animal vital
force endeavours (as it always does), after the manner
of allopathy, to attack the body in the least diseased
parts and to set up a disease dissimilar to the original
one. In this way it can never cure, but always aggravates
chronic diseases; acute diseases of moderate intensity it
laboriously removes with a great expenditure of suffering
and loss, whilst it rarely fails to bring to a fatal termina-
tion severe and dangerous acute fevers by its misdirected
energy.¹ On the other hand, we should imitate those rare
salutary cures (§§ 38—41*) where another disease-force
similar to the original malady comes on and rapidly
removes, annihilates, and cures the original affection.
"1 For our innate vital force can only act according to the organic consti-
tution of our body, not by reasoning."
To § 54:
§§ 54, 55 are an expansion, with slight difference of arrangement of § 66
of second and third editions.
To § 56:
In the second and third editions this aphorism terminates here.
To § 56, note:
This note on Isopathy, like the former one on the subject at p. 42, occurs
first in the fifth edition.
In the Chron. Krankh., 2nd edit., at the end of the first part, we find the
following remarks on Isopathy :
"The antipsoric medicines treated of in the following volumes contain no
so-called isopathic remedies, because their pure effects, even those of the
potentized itch-miasm (psorin), are a long way from being sufficiently
* §§ 43-46 of the last edition.
APPENDIX.
255
I say
proved to enable us to make a sure homoeopathic use of them.
homœopathic, for the prepared itch-matter does not remain idem, even if
given to the patient from whom it was taken, because, if it is to do him good,
it can only do so in a potentized state, seeing that crude itch-matter, which he
has in him already, being an idem, has no action on him. The preparation
that developes its power (potentization) changes and modifies it, just as gold-
leaf, after being potentized, is no longer crude (leaf) gold without action on
the human body, but at every stage of its potentization is more and more
modified and altered.
"Potentized and modified in this way, the itch-matter (psorin) for
administration is no longer idem with the crude original itch-matter, but
only a simillimum. For between idem nnd simillimum there is, for those
who can reflect, nothing intermediate; or, in other words, between idem and
simile only simillimum can exist. Isopathic and æquale are misleading
terms, which, if they can mean anything trustworthy, can only mean
simillimum because they are not idem (Tavrov).”
To § 60, note:
Hufeland's pamphlet on Homœopathy is translated in the Brit. Journ. of
Hom., vol. xvi.
To § 69:
The paragraphs from § 56 to § 69 treat of the antipathic or palliative method
of treatment. In the first edition this method was criticised at the end of
the Organon, in §§ 260 to 271. It may interest the reader to see how the
subject was there handled:
66
§ 260. Among the other causes which gave rise to
the large doses in ordinary practice, the palliative employ-
ment of medicines is especially prominent.¹
"The complete opposition of the palliative to the homoeopathic method
consists, among other things, in this, that in the former the largest possible,
in the latter the smallest possible doses are required.
((
§ 261. In the palliative employment of medicines,
which is directly contrary to the homoeopathic method, it
was attempted to remove by means of some symptoms
medicines were known to possess, the exactly opposite
symptoms of the disease.
"§ 262. But as in this case the medicine excites in the
organism nothing similar to the existing diseased state (as
takes place in the homoeopathic method), but its exact
opposite, so we observe in such palliative treatment not
only not the slightest trace of preliminary (apparent) aggra-
vation of the disease, as we do in the homoeopathic treat-
ment (§ 132*) but, on the contrary, an almost instantaneous
apparent amelioration of it. In the first hour after
* § 157 of fifth edition.
256
APPENDIX.
taking the palliative the patient feels himself most relieved,
which is never the case after taking the homoeopathic
remedy.
""
.
§ 263. Whereas in the homoeopathic method the
whole morbid state is overpowered, extinguished and anni-
hilated in the organism by the very similar artificial
counter-disease-force of the specific remedy in a short
time (only not in the first hour, but gradually more so
from hour to hour), in the palliative method—whose maxim
is contraria contrariis curentur-one single symptom of the
disease under treatment is quickly merely alleviated by
the exactly contrary symptom proper to the medicine;
perhaps because the opposites neutralise one another
dynamically (but only temporarily) by a sort of mutual
amalgamation, and in this way lose their influence upon
the organism as long as the action of the opposed medicinal
symptom lasts.
"§ 264. The original malady seems at the very begin-
ning of the palliative treatment to vanish, but it is not
removed, not extinguished; as soon as the oppositely
acting tendency of the palliative ceases to act and has
exhausted its action, which takes place in a few hours or
days, it returns not merely in the same degree but even in
increased intensity by the accession of the after-effect
tendency (secondary symptoms) of the palliative, which
(as the opposite of the primary effect) is very similar to
the original disease symptom, and thus, as an addition
to it, seriously and permanently aggravates it.
(6
§ 265. Quite contrary to the homeopathic curative
process, the patient feels the most relief during the first
hour of the use of a palliative medicine, less in the
second hour, still less in the third, and so on, until when
the opposite primary action has expired, the tendency of
the secondary action comes into play, and then the
patient becomes worse than before he took the palliative.¹
"1 As a new disease invading the system where there is one already present
acts precisely like a medicine and we can make use of such a disease when this
new one symptomatically resembles the older one, as a perfect homœopathic
APPENDIX.
257
remedy, and by means of it annihilate and extinguish the older disease (§§ 28
-30, 36*), so also diseases may be improperly used as palliatives, as has
actually been done. Thus Leroy, who did not know this difference and its
significance (Heilkunde für Mütter, p. 383), imagined he could remove the
indurated glands all over the body of a scrofulous child by inoculation of
smallpox. When the smallpox broke out all the indurated glands immedi-
ately disappeared; but six weeks afterwards-the palliative suspension of the
old affection did not last longer-all the glandular indurations reappeared, as
was quite natural, because the indurated glands that come on after smallpox
do not belong to its primary action, i. e. not to its acute stage, but to its
after-disease (secondary action), consequently cannot homœopathically cure,
remove and annihilate glandular indurations already present in the body.
"§ 266. Now in order to renew the illusory ameliora-
tion, it is necessary to increase the strength of the pallia-
tive every time, often to administer considerably stronger
doses, because every dose has to cover not only the sym-
ptoms of the disease itself, but also the aggravation of
the disease caused by the secondary symptoms of the
previous dose.¹
"A striking example of this will be found in J. H. Schulze's Diss. qua
corporis humani momentanearum alterationem specimina quædam expen-
duntur, Halæ, 1741, § 28.
((
§ 267. Unless the dose of the palliative is increased,
the (temporary) amelioration is always smaller, at length
unobservable and nil, and there then ensues an increased
aggravation of the disease.
(c
§ 268. Every medicine (antagonistic and opposite in
its action to the chief symptom of the disease) that only
relieves in always increasing doses is a palliative.¹
"The irrational character of the palliative method of treatment is self-
evident, for the patient does not want an illusory temporary relief followed
by an aggravation of the malady, but a radical cure; and it is also fallacious,
because by means of it we combat only a single symptom, often only the
twentieth part of the whole disease; in short, this is symptomatic and there-
fore not remedial treatment. And yet it was fortunate that so little was known
of the symptoms proper to the medicines, otherwise too frequent misuse of
them might have been made for the purpose of combating opposite states.
Treatment of this sort was consequently very limited. For habitual dis-
position to drowsiness coffee was given; for diarrhoea, even of a chronic
character, the primary constipating power of opium was employed, its action
in causing stupifying comatose sleep was used for chronic wakefulness, and
the stupor and insensibility this substance produces in the whole sensorium
was utilised for all conceivable sorts of pain; with irritating purgative
* The corresponding paragraphs in fifth edition are §§ 43-46.
17
258
APPENDIX.
medicines and laxative salts, which cause frequent evacuations of the bowels,
the tendency to constipation was sought to be removed; by heating spices
and spirituous liquors a deficiency of blood-heat and so-called weakness of
stomach were endeavoured to be remedied; chronic stuffed nose by sternu-
tatory remedies; inflammation by cooling things; heat of the system by blood-
letting; the bladder when nearly completely paralysed, even in chronic cases,
was sought to be roused to activity by cantharides, which has such a powerfully
irritating action on the urinary system; old paralyses of various kinds were
treated with electricity and galvanism, which in their primary action set the
muscles in movement, &c. But how rarely health, how frequently increase
of disease and even something worse, ensued from this treatment experience
-often too late-showed.
"§§ 269, 270 are substantially the same as the note to § 67 in the fifth
edition."
"§ 271. In this case none of the ill consequences of the
ordinary one-sided palliation of a single disease-symptom
ensue; a perfect cure without collateral troubles or after-
pains results, but in such a way that the symptoms, which
are in this case (palliatively) combated by the opposite
symptoms of the medicine, do not disappear until the
medicine has completely exhausted its action.”
The last clause of the note to § 67 of the fifth edition is an epitome of
this aphorism.
To § 72.
In place of §§ 72–82 we find in the first edition the following :
"6
§ 39.* With respect to the first point, the enormous
variety and number of diseases may mislead one to believe
that one cannot retain in the memory and keep in view
their stupendous diversity, and hence cannot cure them
if one is unable to get a comprehensive view of the whole,
and cannot arrange them in a few classes of small dimen-
sions so as to be able to treat them medicinally on
general principles in each individual class formed by some
common relationships and resemblances among numerous
and varied individual cases of disease, as though they were
a single disease, whereby their treatment would be facili-
tated.
"§ 40. But diseases, ailments and dyscrasias are such
infinitely varied phenomena that a useful classification of
them is impossible, even should such a forced arrangement
*The corresponding paragraph of the second and third editions varies
considerably from this. It is given below, p. 267.
APPENDIX.
259
of them into separate classes appear essential for purposes
of cure.¹
1
" I will not dwell upon the systematic classification of diseases hitherto in
vogue (almost every pathological work has its own peculiar one). Were any
one of the multitude of them of any real use, it would undoubtedly have
achieved and retained universal approval, because truth is omnipotent.
((
§ 41. The division into general and local diseases.
seems to have been the favourite.
66
"§ 42. But the human organism in its living state is
a complete whole, a unity. Every sensation, every mani-
festation of power, every affinity of the component parts
of one part is intimately associated with the sensations,
the functions and the affinities of the component parts of
all other parts. No part can suffer without all other
parts sympathising and simultaneously undergoing more
or less change.
"§ 43. This vital unity does not permit a disease to
remain only local, completely and absolutely local in our
body, as long as the malady misnamed local is on a part
not entirely separate from the rest of the body. The
rest of the body always sympathises more or less, and
expresses this sympathy by some symptom or other.
Every powerful medicine, even when applied to a quite
distant part or given internally, effects a change-making
impression on this apparently local affection also, and the
remedy specifically suitable for the general disease (of
which the local affection is always only a part, only a
symptom) generally cures the local affection, though it
may be in quite a distant part and apparently isolated.
"§ 44. A second highly esteemed division of diseases
into febrile and afebrile is equally unsatisfactory. There
is no agreement as to what characteristic signs and
symptoms should and can be included in the definition
of fever, and what should be excluded; and among the
large number of theories and definitions of fever there is
none that does not include symptoms which are more or
less found in diseases held to be of the most afebrile
character. The most febrile pass by insensible degrees
into the most afebrile, so that a sharp separation of the
260
APPENDIX.
two is only pathological, but not in conformity with
nature.
"§ 45. Of itself the nomenclature or classification of
the innumerable varieties of diseases, even were it pos-
sible to be tolerably correct and complete, would, for the
physician as a natural historian, be of the same use as
the classification of other natural phenomena and natural
objects is in general natural history,—that is to say, it
would facilitate his historical view by furnishing him with
a tabular arrangement; but for the physician as medical
practitioner it is of no use at all, for the true healing art
cannot rest contented with the bare one-sided similarity
of several individual diseases among one another that
suffices for the combination into genera and species, but
must have the most complete view of every individual
case of disease before it can select an accurately suitable
remedy, that is to say, before it can deserve the name
of a well-grounded and rational healing art.
"§ 46. Nature has no nomenclature or classification of
diseases. She produces single diseases, and demands
that the true healing artist shall treat individually in his
fellow-creatures not the systematic combination con-
stituting a disease genus (a kind of confounding different
diseases together), but each particular disease by itself;
but she forbids the therapeutic treatment of composite
groups of diseases constructed by imaginative man instead
of individual diseases (which she has wisely created as sepa-
rate entities), thus crippling the divine work of healing.
*
"§ 47. If the rationality of the medical doctrine is
manifest at all it is especially in this, that it discards all
systematic and other prejudices, never if possible acts
without good grounds, never, if possible, neglects any
measures that may render the treatment appropriate, and
concerns itself as much as possible with what can be
ascertained; thus the attention to the varieties and differ-
ences of diseases (as also of medicines)—that is to say,
the careful investigation of the individual phenomena of
* Here in a note the quotation from Huxham given in a note to § 81 of
the fifth edition.
APPENDIX.
261
every disease, and of the peculiar mode of action of every
single medicine, will characterise the rational, thorough
physician.
"§ 48. As every epidemic of disease in the world
(with the exception of those few which have a fixed un-
alterable miasm) differs from every other, and even every
single case of epidemic and sporadic disease, and in
especial every case of disease not belonging to such
collective diseases differs from every other, the rational
physician will judge every malady coming under his care
just as it is according to its individual differentia.
When he has investigated its peculiarities and all its phe-
nomena and symptoms (for that is why they are there,
in order that they should be attended to), he will treat
it according to its individuality, i. e. according to the
group of symptoms it displays, with a remedy individu-
ally adapted to it. By acting in this honest, unprejudiced
and rational manner, he will show the difference between
himself and every other physician who does not deign to
investigate the case of disease thoroughly, but generalises
it in an off-hand way to suit his own convenience, labels
it with one of his systematic names, and invents a treat-
ment to correspond.
"49. Some diseases which are caused by a peculiar
contagium (a peculiar miasm of tolerably fixed character),
e. g. the plague of the Levant, smallpox, measles, true
smooth scarlet fever, the venereal disease, the itch of
workers in wool, also canine rabies, whooping-cough, plica
polonica, &c., seem to be so fixed in their character and
course, that whenever they are met with they can always
be recognised as old acquaintances by their persistent
features. Consequently we can give to each of them a
peculiar name, and endeavour to lay down some fixed
method of treatment suitable as a rule for each of them.
(6
§ 50. It may be that there are some other diseases
which we cannot yet prove to be owing to a miasm, as
also diseases attached to certain localities and occurring
under certain climatic conditions, besides those diseases
that are endemic here and there, such as autumnal marsh
262
APPENDIX.
ague, yellow fever, sea-scurvy, pian, yaws, sibbens,
pellagra, &c., likewise a few diseases produced either by
some single uniform cause or by a concurrence of several
determinate causes, which admit of being classified to-
gether to a certain degree (e. g. gout, perhaps also mem-
branous croup and Millar's asthma). Such affections
equally deserve to have their special names, because the
group of symptoms remains on the whole tolerably the
same in each, and therefore they are capable of a peculiar
fixed mode of treatment.
..
"§ 51. But it is different with a number of other
diseases, which probably arise from the concurrence of
several pathogenic causes not combining in the same way
for the production of the malady, hence they often differ
from one another in several important symptoms, and so
do not admit of being all treated with the same reme-
dies. To these belong the very different sorts of epilepsy,
catalepsy, tetanus, chorea, pleurisy, phthisis, diabetes,
sore throat, prosopalgia, dysentery and other names given
by the schools to morbid states often essentially diverse,
and only resembling one another by a few symptoms
they have in common, in order that, by regarding them
as identical, an identical mode of treatment might be
laid down for them. But the very dissimilar results
experience showed to follow this plan is a sufficient refu-
tation of this supposed identity. They may serve as
collective names, but not as special names of supposed
identical morbid states; for if they are so regarded they
lead to a uniform empirical medicinal treatment, to the
detriment of the patients.¹
.
"1 Thus, for instance, there are numerous varieties of diabetes, i. e. several
diseases essentially differing from one another, but mixed up together under
this single name, which to the casual observer apparently resemble one another
in one or more symptoms, but are erroneously considered as one and the same
disease. More careful examination of the separate cases shows that in almost
every one there are symptoms differing very much from or not present in the
other cases, and that even the urine, to which the inventors of this name
attached such importance, as though it were a great discovery, often varied
much in its character; some specimens went rapidly into vinous and acetous
fermentation, others merely became mouldy, &c. If one kind of diabetes
was curable by ammonium sulphate, many other kinds were not benefited by
APPENDIX.
263
this remedy. Alum seemed to be the best medicine for a few cases, whereas
in others neither alum nor ammonium sulphate did good. Can these be the
same disease, when they vary so much in their collective symptoms, and
require such different modes of treatment? All these manifold morbid
states may certainly be called kinds of diabetes, but not simply diabetes, so as
to convey the false impression that they are all one simple identical disease.
Anyone who has once cured a faceache with mercurial ointment will certainly
meet with three or four cases, all of which he will call by the same name, in
none of which is this ointment of any use. If each of these names only in-
dicated diseases which were always the same, then the want of success
of the treatment with the same remedy which once proved useful would be
quite impossible. They must all yield to the same treatment if they were all
the same disease. But as they do not do so, this clearly shows that in spite
of their having the same name they are essentially different diseases, only no
pains were taken to investigate their differentiating symptoms. These manifold
morbid states may certainly be called kinds of faceache, but not merely face-
ache, for it is not always one and the same disease. And so it is with the
other diseases mentioned and with other disease-names of the like sort.
<<
§ 52. And so with regard to other diseases, the names
are still more inappropriate, and the empirical treatment
they lead to is still more dangerous, when they comprise a
still greater diversity of morbid states which bear a distant
resemblance to one another by hardly a couple of similar
symptoms, whilst the greater number of their other pheno-
mena and characteristics differ widely from one another.
The vague names of ague, jaundice, dropsy, consump-
tion, whites, piles, rheumatism, apoplexy, spasms, palsy,
melancholia, mania, &c., may be instanced.¹
1 "What countless numbers of so-called agues are there not, differing
vastly from one another, having in common at the most the phenomena of
chills and heat and something of an intermittent type, but not always even
that! On closer investigation of their other symptoms we find that almost
every one of these different disease kinds is a disease sui generis. With what
right can we call the many very dissimilar diseases which have no relation to
one another in their other symptoms, and only resemble one another in the
single phenomenon yellowness of skin, which is owing to derangement of the
biliary excretion of very various kinds, by the name of jaundice, which pre-
supposes identity? So also in many very different diseases, among many other
symptoms, there is adema; but who would, on account of this single sym-
ptom, which is certainly very conspicuous but not on that account always
the most important-often, indeed, not at all important-assert that all
these very various diseases were one single disease called dropsy, thereby
leaving unnoticed the other highly significant symptoms which differentiate
these diseases from one another? And so of other examples.
"§ 53. How could one with a semblance of rationality
264
APPENDIX.
1
include under general names those very dissimilar morbid
states which have often only one single symptom in
common, and thereby justify their identical medicinal
treatment? And if they are not to have the same medi-
cinal treatment-which they could not have without
detriment to the patient-what is the use of the identical
names implying the need of the same treatment? Mis-
leading, useless and injurious as these names are, they
ought not to influence the treatment of a rational physician,
who knows that he has to judge of and to cure diseases
not according to the vague nominal similarity of a single
symptom, but according to the whole array of all the
symptoms of the individual state of each single patient,
whose sufferings it is his duty to investigate accurately,
but not to make hypothetical guesses about them.
66
§ 54. Even those diseases which during every epidemic
may be spread by an infectious matter-the vast number
of putrid, bilious, nervous (hospital, jail, camp), and other
spreading fevers-vary very much at each time of their
occurrence in their manifestations and course. Every fresh
epidemic of them, e. g. of putrid fever, because every epi-
demic is caused by a different miasm, shows itself even in
some of its most striking symptoms to be so unlike all
previous epidemics of the same name that we should be
running counter to the principles of logic were we to give
to this very different malady the old name or one that
has already been employed, and, misled by the misused
name, were to employ the same medicinal treatment as
for former epidemics of the same designation.
"§ 55. We can only regard as similar for curative
purposes the cases belonging to each of such epidemic or
sporadic affections, which in this respect may be termed a
collective disease, and treat them similarly, with due regard
to the greater or smaller variations in each particular case.
"§ 56. Every epidemic comprehends in itself a number
of very similar individual cases of disease; but epidemics
differ very much one with another, and cannot be desig-
nated by a similar or the same name, nor indiscriminately
treated with the same medicine.
APPENDIX.
265
"§ 57. These epidemics, admitting of no fixed, special
name, which at every fresh appearance among the people.
occur in altered form and with an altered group of sym-
ptoms and manifestations, are, as collective diseases, most.
appropriately consigned to the large class of all other
diseases, infirmities and dyscrasias of the human body
due to a concurrence of dissimilar causes and forces,
which vary in number, strength and kind-influences
of extremely complex nature, whence arise those infinitely
various diseases from which the great race of mankind
on the globe suffers and always has suffered.
"§ 58. All things that are in any degree operative (their
number is inconceivable) can influence and cause changes
in our organism, which stands in connection and conflict
with all parts of the universe, and everything causes a
different change, because it differs from every other thing.
.
"§ 59. What diversity, I may say what infinite diver-
sity, must there not be among diseases, which are indeed
the effects of the action of these innumerable, often highly
inimical forces, when several of the latter, together or in
varied succession, quality and strength, exert their in-
fluence on our bodies, seeing that the latter differ so much
from one another in many external and internal properties
and peculiarities, and the conditions of life are so diver-
sified that no human individual exactly resembles another
in any imaginable respect !¹
1 "Some of these influences that predispose to or produce disease are, e. g.,
the countless numbers of more or less hurtful emanations from organic and
inorganic substances; the many diversely irritating kinds of gas which cause
alterations and injuries to our nerves in the atmosphere, in our workshops
and dwellings, or which stream out against us from water, earth, animals
and plants; deficiency of indispensable food for our vitality, of pure open
air; excess or deficiency of sunlight or of electricity; varieties of atmos-
pheric pressure, of humidity or dryness of the air; the still unknown
properties and bad effects of lofty mountain localities and those of low
situations and deep valleys; the peculiarities of the climate and situation in
extensive plains, in deserts destitute of plants and water, on the sea-coast,
in marshy, hilly and wooded districts, or in localities exposed to various
winds; the influence of very changeable or too long continuance of the same
weather; the influence of storms and various meteorological circumstances;
excessive heat or coldness of the air, deficient or excessive artificial heat of
266
APPENDIX.
=
our clothes or rooms; constriction of the limbs or body by articles of dress
excessive coldness and heat of our food and drink; hunger, thirst or surfeits
of victuals and drinks, and the injurious medicinal health-deranging powers
they possess (wine, spirits, beer adulterated with more or less harmful
herbs, drinking-water polluted with foreign substances, coffee, tea, indigenous
or exotic spices, and food, sauces, liqueurs, chocolate, cakes seasoned with them;
the unknown injurious character of some plants and animals used as food) or
acquire by negligent preparation, spoiling, substitution or adulteration (e. g. ill
fermented or only half-baked bread, underdone meat and vegetables, or putrid or
mouldy food, victuals and drinks prepared or kept in metal vessels, made-up, poi-
soned wines, vinegar adulterated with corrosive substances, the flesh of diseased
animals, flour mixed with gypsum or sand, grain mixed with hurtful seeds;
dangerous plants mixed with or substituted for table vegetables from malice,
ignorance, or poverty); want of cleanliness of the body, clothes or dwellings;
injurious substances that have got into the food from want of cleanliness or
carelessness; inhaling noxious vapours in sick rooms, in mines, stamping mills,
roasting and smelting-houses; the dust laden with various hurtful substances
that come out of the stuffs made in our factories; the neglect of many of the
police arrangements for securing the weal of the community; excessive exer-
tion of our bodily powers, inordinate active or passive exercise, over-exertion
of certain parts of the body or of the organs of sense, various unnatural
postures and positions incident to occupations and trades; deficient em-
ployment of certain parts or over-indulgence in laziness; irregularity in the
periods of rest (long midday siesta), of meals, of work; excess or deficiency
of night sleep; over-exertion of the mental faculties generally or compulsory
intellectual work of a disagreeable nature, or such as excites or wearies certain
faculties of the mind; violent mental emotions, anger, fright, vexation, or
debilitating passions excited by reading lascivious books, by injudicious
education, by indulgence, by conversation; abuse of the sexual functions;
qualms of conscience, fear, grief, &c.
"§ 60. Hence the unspeakable number of dissimilar
corporeal and mental affections, which differ so much
among one another that, strictly speaking, each of them
has perhaps existed only once in the world, and that, with the
exception of those few diseases with an unalterable miasm
(§ 49) and probably some few others (§ 50), every epi-
demic or sporadic collective disease, and, besides these,
every other case of disease we meet with must be regarded
and treated as a nameless, individual disease, which never
had occurred before as in this case, in this person, and
under this condition, and can never occur again in the
world exactly the same.
"§ 61. As Nature herself produces diseases of such
various kinds, so there can be no rational healing art
without strict individualisation of each case of disease for
APPENDIX.
267
the purpose of treatment, without the physician regarding
each disease coming under his care as peculiar and unique,
which it undoubtedly is. There will then be an end to
all that empirical generalising which is so nearly allied to
presumptuous speculation and arbitrary substitution."
The second and third editions have, in place of § 72 of the last edition, the
following:
<c
§ 83. With respect to the first point we may unhesi-
tatingly pass over the unfortunate attempts hitherto made
by the medical schools to formulate conceptions of the
diseases in conformity with which a fixed method of
treatment (therapeia) might be laid down beforehand for
all diseases that may be expected to occur in nature. We
need not dwell on the fact that it has hitherto been sought
to bring diseases-those infinitely diverse deviations of
man's health from the healthy state-under a limited
number of names,¹ and furnish them with cut and dry de-
scriptions (respecting which no two pathological works are
agreed) in order that an easily learned mode of treatment
might be laid down in the manuals of therapeutics for every
form of disease thus artificially determined. We may re-
frain from dwelling on the circumstance that general patho-
logy described morbid states (that seemed to occur fre-
quently in diseases) as separate entities and as invariably
the same, in order when thus torn from the rest of the
disease to be able to treat them all round scientifically
according to one general therapeutic method, whatever
disease they belonged to. This artificial arrangement
and naming of a certain number of kinds of disease,
as also this unnatural separation of certain parts from
the diseases, are so palpably inventions of arbitrary
speculation for therapeutic purposes, that they deserve no
consideration in this system of medicine where every
disease is, for curative purposes, regarded as an individu-
ality, just as it is in the infinite diversity of nature.
-
1 "This much is certain, that the name of a disease does not in the least help
us to cure it (supposing it were possible to give diseases fixed names, which,
however, is as impossible as it would be to give a special name to every single
cloud, which shall never again appear of precisely the same form and colour),
268
APPENDIX.
for every curative indication for this or that disease consists solely in the
investigation of its exact individual character, i. e. in ascertaining the signs,
sufferings, symptoms and alterations of the health peculiar to every case of
disease in contrast with the former healthy state, in order that we may be
able to select for the totality of the symptoms a suitable analogue of artificial
medicinal disease, i. e. a homœopathically acting remedy.”
(Here follows a paragraph nearly identical with § 49 of the first edition.)
"But here also we see how easily names of diseases may be misused, and
through the name a quite false thing may be substituted, if we fail to dis-
criminate the diseases according to the whole extent of their phenomena.
Thus in the year 1801 (Cure and Prevention of the Scarlet Fever,* Gotha)
I announced a prophylactic and remedy for the old, smooth, erythema-like
scarlet fever described by Sydenham, Withering and Plencitz, an epidemic
which I had witnessed in Lower Saxony a year before, the third year of
my professional life. At the time when my pamphlet appeared, a new
exanthematous disease, originally endemic in Holland, the purpura miliaris,†
had penetrated through Hesse and Thuringia into Saxony, the exanthem of
which consists of a dark red miliary rash crowded together in large patches.
In the locality in which it appeared, a few months previously a mild epidemic
of true scarlet fever had prevailed. The new disease then came in epidemic
form, but with fatal violence, as all new eruptive diseases which have never
been in the locality previously are wont to do. In the previous epidemic
of scarlet fever the physicians had administered to children they wished
to protect the prophylactic and remedy (a small dose of belladonna) dis-
covered by me, and it had always proved successful in protecting from the true
scarlet fever (as the communications at the time in the Allgemeiner Anzeiger
der Deutschen testify). But as the physicians regarded the subsequent purpura
miliaris as a kind of scarlet fever (though it is quite different from the
smooth, lobster-red scarlet fever in all its symptoms) and treated it in the
same way, and also gave belladonna as a prophylactic for it, they naturally
met with no success, and they clamoured about the uselessness of the prophy-
lactic, when, on the contrary, complaint should have been made about the
stupidity of their confounding two such different diseases and calling them by
the same name. After the first epidemic of this purpura miliaris the old
smooth scarlet fever of Sydenham seldom appeared, and then only here and
there. When complaints were made of deaths, from scarlet fever, it was
the disease falsely so denominated, it was in fact the purpura miliaris, which
since its first epidemic invasion only appeared sporadically. On my return to
Saxony I saw and treated this new fever, and lost no time in publicly apprising
the physicians that they had confounded both diseases under one and the same
name. But all in vain. They continued mistakenly to call this dark-coloured
purpura miliaris by the name of scarlet fever, from which it is widely different
in every respeet (which many of them had never previously seen, as it only
appears once every eight, ten or twelve years), and to treat it as such; hence
* A translation of this work will be found in Hahnemann's Lesser
Writings.
† I am unable to say what this disease was exactly. Of course it was
neither a purpura nor a miliary fever, though Hahnemann calls it Purpurfriesel,
i. e. purple miliary. Possibly it was a severe epidemic of measles.
APPENDIX.
269
the great mortality from it. Later (in the Allg. Anz. d. Deutschen, 1808, No.
160) I endeavoured to point out the great difference of the symptoms of the
two diseases, and I mentioned that whilst the old, rarely now seen scarlet fever
required for its prevention and cure belladonna only, the purpura miliaris could
only be cured by aconite in the smallest dose. But it was several years before
the physicians of the old school acknowledged the correctness of my instruc-
tion and began to abandon this confounding of names and things, and to give
up the routine treatment of the old, true scarlet fever laid down in their books,
with purgatives, calomel, elder-flower tea and heated beds, and to make up
their minds to cure those affected with purpura miliaris with aconite-and all
because they had erroneously persisted in giving the improper designation of
scarlet fever to purpura miliaris. Thus this false name and the empirical
treatment based upon it proved fatal to many thousands of children.
"Other diseases are not of such unvarying character as to justify us in
treating them alike on account of their name. It is well known that the
so-called yellow fever varies very much in different years and different
localities, and yet it is called by the same name and treated accordingly in
an identical manner.
"How often are children suffering from dyspnoea and hoarse cough declared
to be affected with membranous croup, and tortured to death with leeches,
bloodletting, fly-blisters, mercurial inunctions, large doses of calomel, senega,
violent emetics, &c., solely owing to the erroneous name!
"How different from one another, according to the books, are not mem-
branous croup and Millar's asthma! And yet C. E. Fischer (Hufeland's
Journal, July, 1813) shows that the first varies very much in character, and
he and Autenrieth (Versuche üb. die pr. Heilk., I, i, p. 5) allege that both these
diseases are very closely related and tend to pass into one another, thereby
demonstrating that they should be treated, not according to the name, but in
conformity with the symptoms they present."
The remainder of this note is a slightly altered rendering of §§ 51-54 of
the first edition given above, and is almost identical with the second note to
§ 81 of the fifth edition.
To § 74:
This, and the two following paragraphs which speak of medicinal diseases,
are first met with in the fifth edition.
To § 81, note:
The substance of this note (which first appears in this form in the fourth
edition, and along with a great deal of additional matter in the second and
third editions) is given in §§ 51-56 of the first edition.
Hahnemann gives the passage from Sydenham in a rather mutilated form.
It is restored here to its original state. Subjoined is Dr. Latham's translation :
"C
Nothing, in my opinion, strikes the mind that contemplates the whole
and open domain of medicine with greater wonder than the well-known
varied and inconsistent character of those diseases which we call epidemic.
It is not so much that they reflect and depend upon different conditions of
climate in one and the same year, as that they represent different and dis-
similar conditions of different and dissimilar years. The evident diversity of
diseases is palpably shown, both by the difference and the peculiarities of
their symptoms and the variety of treatment that they require. From all
270
APPENDIX.
which it is perfectly clear that, although the disorders in question may,
to a certain degree, both in their external characters and in several symptoms
common to many of them, appear to the careless observer to coincide, they
are in reality, if we attend closely, of wholly different characters, as little
like one another as coin and counters."
To § 83:
In §§ 83-99 the directions how to proceed in the examination of the
patient are very similar to, in many parts identical with, the rules laid down
for this purpose in the Med. of Exp. (pp. 506–510).
To § 103:
This section occurs first in the third edition, intercalated between § 108
and § 109.
To § 109, note 1:
This note is only found in the fifth edition.
To § 112:
Instead of this and the two following paragraphs we find in the first
edition the following:
"§ 90. Still one finds, in those older descriptions of the
often dangerous effects of medicines swallowed in such
enormous doses, states which showed themselves not at
first, but towards the end of such sad events, and which
were of an exactly opposite nature to the first state.
((
§ 91. Such secondary accidents I myself observed
pretty frequently at first, but not so often as in those
records, because I did not employ such enormously large
doses. The smaller the doses I subsequently used for
trials of this sort, the more rarely did these accidents
occur, whereas even with the smaller doses the primary
symptoms presented themselves in as great numbers and
with equal certainty when I bestowed great attention
during the observation and eschewed everything which
might interfere with the purity of the trial.
"§ 92. The circumstance that the subsequent sym-
ptoms, which may be termed negative or secondary, appear
most frequently after very large doses, and that they are
all the rarer the smaller the dose used in the trials is,
shows that the secondary symptoms are only a kind of
after-disease which, in the case of large doses, occurs
after the cessation of the positive or primary symptoms;
a kind of opposite state-in accordance with the usual
processes in life, in which all seems to go on in alter-
nating states.¹
APPENDIX.
271
"As sadness usually succeeds to great hilarity-constipation to diar-
rhœa, diarrhoea to constipation, wakefulness to somnolence, heat to chilliness
and vice versâ.
"§ 93. After every powerful medicine there is mani-
fested a considerable number of symptoms of various
kinds, a whole series of accidents and morbid phenomena,
which are all primary symptoms provided the dose was
not too violent. The chief effects of the medicines, as
artificial pathogenic forces, are these more frequent
primary symptoms.
To § 117:
In the first edition the idiosyncrasies are alluded to in the following note:
'Idiosyncrasies are often only those rare but pure striking effects of medicines
on persons who, although in good health, are yet peculiarly sensitive to the
action of these particular substances. Thus some species of sumach when
touched cause certain cutaneous eruptions in a few persons, and eating crayfish
causes a kind of erysipelas and urticaria in a few persons (though both these
substances possess the tendency to produce these phenomena under all circum-
stances); and so some horses and cows are suddenly killed by eating yew-
leaves, whilst others are but little affected by them."
To § 117, note:
Wesselhoeft says this fact is erroneously given by Hahnemann; that it was
her father, the Emperor Alexius, whom M. Porphyrogenita restored, in pre-
sence of her sisters Eudoxia and Anna Comnena. The latter mentions in her
history that her father had been deadly sick for some time, that he had
fainted a second time and in such a way that, unless help could be given, it
seemed as if he would have died from this attack. (B. J. of Hom., ii, 223.)
To § 119:
In the first edition we read the following:
(C
"C
§ 98. Substances belonging to the animal and vege-
table kingdoms are most medicinal in their crude state.¹
"Those plants and animals which are used as aliments have the advan-
tage over the others of possessing a larger proportion of nutritious parts, and
differ from the latter in this, that their medicinal powers in their raw state
are either not so intense, or, when they are intense, are destroyed by drying
(as in the case of arum and peony root), by expression of the injurious juices
(as in cassava), by fermentation (sour gherkins), by smoking and by the
action of heat (in roasting, frying, baking, boiling), or are rendered harmless
by the addition of salt, sugar, and especially vinegar (in sauces and salads)
Even the most medicinal plants lose their medicinal power partially or com-
pletely by such operations. The juice of the heroic plants is often reduced to
an impotent, pitch-like mass by the heat applied in the ordinary preparation
of an extract. The expressed juice of the most poisonous plants in their
fresh state (for if piled up when green they sweat, as it is termed, and
the greater part of their medicinal power is lost by fermentation), if allowed
272
APPENDIX.
to stand for a single day in a moderately warm place, passes into full fermen-
tation and loses much of its medicinal power; but if it stands for two or
three days the acetous fermentation is complete, and all its specific medicinal
power is gone: the sediment is then quite harmless, resembling wheat starch."
To § 124:
The second and third editions have this in addition :
"As the tinctures are mixed with a large quantity of
water before being taken, the small amount of such very
diluted alcohol in the mixture cannot be regarded as a
foreign irritant."
To § 126:
The previous editions had the following (the fourth edition, as being the
fullest, is quoted):
((
§ 120. The person who makes the trial, and who to
do this properly must be intelligent, willing and healthy,
takes for this purpose, in the morning fasting, such a dose
of the medicine to be proved as is usually prescribed for
diseases in ordinary practice. The best way to take it
is in solution, mixed with about ten parts of not quite
cold water.
((
§ 121. If in the course of a few hours this dose
causes no, or only very slight alterations of the health, the
prover (the medicine should be tested in both males and
females) takes a larger, according to circumstances a
doubly large dose, preferably mixed and shaken up also
with ten parts of not quite cold water.
"§ 122. If the first dose at first seems to act strongly,
but after a few hours its activity declines, the second
stronger dose must be taken the following morning fasting,
and if this does not act as we would wish, then a stronger,
according to circumstances a quadruple dose given on
the third morning, will display its action.
"§ 123. All persons are not affected equally strongly
by a medicine. On the contrary, there is a great diversity
on this point, so that sometimes an apparently delicate
person may be hardly at all acted on by a moderate dose
of a reputed strong medicine, but may be violently affected
by many much weaker medicines. And, on the other hand,
there are very strong persons, who exhibit very consider-
APPENDIX.
273
able morbid symptoms from an apparently mild medicine,
and but slight symptoms from stronger ones.
As we
cannot tell this beforehand, it is advisable to commence in
every case with a small dose of the medicine, and, where
it is judged necessary, to increase the dose (doubling it
each time), either the same day after a few hours, or from
day to day."
To § 127:
This aphorism is expressed parenthetically in the three previous editions;
see above, § 121 of fourth edition.
To § 128:
§§ 128 and 129 first appear in the fifth edition. They are somewhat in
variance with what goes before, and introduce the novelty of making provings
with globules of the 30th dilution. It will be noticed that Hahnemann in
§ 128 calls "high dilutions" what he had previously been accustomed to call
"low dilutions."
To § 129:
The first edition has the following:
"§ 107. This repetition will, however, seldom be neces-
sary if the prover and the physician are both equally
observant. We are much surer of obtaining a pure result,
especially as regards the succession of the symptoms, if
the trial is made on the prover with a single dose, and
only after some weeks a second dose of the same medicine;
or still better, after the lapse of a considerable time, with
a single dose of another medicine."
((
§ 110. All the symptoms belonging to a medicine do
not appear in one prover, nor yet do all appear at once or
on the same day, but some in one person, others in
another, yet so that perhaps in a fourth or tenth prover
some or many of the symptoms which had been noticed in
the second or sixth or seventh prover may appear; nor
will they all appear precisely at the same hour."
To § 132:
The previous editions add or several times a day."
To § 141, note :
In the second and third editions this note forms § 148.
To § 143, note:
This note is only in the fifth edition. It seems to be directed against the
multitude of symptoms contributed to the Materia Medica of Hartlaub and
Trinks by Dr. Nenning, which were obtained in the manner here represented.
Here is what Hahnemann says about Nenning's contributions in the Chr.
Krank., ii, p. 35:
18
274
APPENDIX.
"Drs. Hartlaub and Trinks indicate by these two letters [Ng.] merely (a
real anonymity,) a man who furnished the greatest number of medicinal
proving symptoms for their Annals, which are often given in very careless,
prolix and unprecise terms. I could only select from them what is fit for
use, and only with this proviso, that in these observations he has acted as an
honest, discreet man. But it is almost unpardonable that in this most impor-
tant and serious business (the indispensable pillar of our system), which
demands great discretion, acuteness of senses, a fine gift of observation, and
stringent criticism of one's own sensations and perceptions, together with
correct choice of expressions, the homeopathic public should be asked to give
unconditional credit to an unknown individual, only designated by two letters,
'Ng.""
Hahnemann has another dig at Nenning in the preface to Magn. carb.
(Chr. Kr., iv, 135): “The symptoms indicated by this sign, ‘Hb. u. Tr.,' are
from the Reine Arzneimittellehre of Drs. Hartlaub and Trinks, but not
marked by the letters of the original prover; but they quite bear the stamp of
the ever-ready symptom-manufactory of Ng.”
Perhaps Hahnemann was unduly prejudiced against Nenning's provings,
which seem to have been conducted conscientiously, though not in strict accord-
ance with Hahnemann's method (see Brit. Journ. of Hom., xxxv, p. 106).
To § 145:
In first and second editions "Vielheit" (multitude) altered in third and
subsequent editions to " Wahrheit (truth) von Symptomen."
In the fourth edition the corresponding aphorism terminates at "composite
remedies."
In the first edition, after " permanent manner" the paragraph runs thus:
"On account of the limited choice of still incomplete remedies, by which,
however, incredibly more and better cures are made than by the ordinary
method, or by all irrational, paralogous, non-homoeopathic methods."
In the second and third editions the parallel passage runs thus:-"On
account of the still limited choice of the sometimes incomplete remedies,
whereby, however, infinitely more, infinitely surer and safer cures are made
than by all the general and special therapeutics of the ordinary medical art,
with its unknown composite remedies and its allopathic and antipathic modes
of treatment directed against imaginary objects of cure instead of against
the true morbid state."
To § 146:
This is preceded in the first edition only by the two following paragraphs :
"§ 124. The group of symptoms obtained from the
action of a medicine proved on the healthy body we find
to offer the greatest resemblance to the complex of sym-
ptoms presented by a given natural disease will, must, be
the most suitable counter-disease for expelling and ex-
tinguishing that natural disease; the most appropriate
specific remedy is found in this medicine.
"§ 125. If the counter-disease agent (the medicine)
APPENDIX.
275
selected is perfectly suitable according to similarity of
symptom, i. e. homoeopathic, and if it be properly ad-
ministered, then the natural disease we have to combat,
be it ever so intense, be it encumbered with ever so many
symptoms, if it be not of long standing, goes off unob-
servedly in a few hours-if it be of longer standing, in a
few days, and we scarcely are aware of the pathogenetic
symptoms of the medicine, i. e. of the artificial counter-
disease; there ensues, in rapid unnoticed transition, nothing
but health, the natural and the artificial disease are
quickly mutually extinguished, without perceptible reac-
tion, quite gently—a real dynamic annihilation."
To § 149, note:
This note is only in the fifth edition.
To § 156:
In the first edition this aphorism appears as a note to the previous aphorism.
To § 157:
This and the three following aphorisms constitute only one in the first
edition.
To § 161:
This aphorism is not in the first and second editions. In the third edition
it appears as a supplementary paragraph between §§ 167 and 168.
To § 170:
In previous editions this forms two paragraphs.
To § 171:
This paragraph appears first in the fourth edition. The previous editions
have instead the following:
(1st edition :) "§ 145. It is only in some cases of old
chronic diseases not subject to any important change,
which present certain fixed fundamental symptoms, that
sometimes almost equally homoeopathically suitable reme-
dies may be employed alternately with advantage; as
long as the supply of medicines proved as to their pure
effects on healthy persons does not offer any perfect
counter-disease agent,* in whose array of symptoms the
group of phenomena of the chronic malady is completely
or almost completely represented, in which case it would
give satisfaction and cure it rapidly and perfectly without
disturbance."
* In the second and third editions "more perfect and most perfect homœo-
pathic medicine.”
276
APPENDIX.
The second and third editions have the following note:
<<
Only in complicated disease, e. g. when, in addition to the venereal chancre-
disease, the condylomatous or mayhap the psoric disease dwells in the body, it
is impossible to complete the cure with a single medicine. Here each appro-
priate homœopathic (specific) remedy for one and the other disease must be
employed alternately; for the first-mentioned complication the best mercurial
preparation in alternation with the best preparation of sulphur until both are
cured."
To § 183, note:
This note appears first in the second edition.
To § 187:
In place of this and the four following paragraphs the first edition has the
following:
"§ 161. As no so-called local malady, arising from
internal causes and persisting on a particular spot, can be
thought of as produced without the consent of the whole
of the rest of the health, and without the participation of
all other sensitive and irritable parts, and of all vital
organs of the body; so, how salutary changes and even
most perfect cures of apparently isolated local maladies.
on the most distant parts of the skin can be effected by
a small quantity of homoeopathically adapted medicine
put on the tongue or introduced into the stomach is only
possible and explicable by the ever watchful sensitiveness
to medicinal forces inherent in all parts of the living body,
only by this susceptibility for medicinal stimuli distributed
through the whole organism."
To § 189:
In the three previous editions this clause is differently worded:
"It could not make its appearance at all without the consent of the whole
of the rest of the health, and without the participation of all the rest of the
sensitive and irritable parts and of all the living organs of the whole body."
To § 194:
This and the next paragraph appear first in the fourth edition. The first
three editions have the following paragraph, omitted in the later editions:
(1st edition :) "§ 164. This is so true, that every local
remedy used alone and only externally, if it restores health
(as it seldom does), is unable to do this unless it has at the
same time a homoeopathic curative influence on the internal
morbid state, and it would have cured equally well had it
been employed internally only and not at all externally.¹
1 "Thus some eczemas are superficially driven off by the external applica-
tion of cantharides, and other exanthemata by the application of mercurial
APPENDIX.
277
preparations; but they are not cured in such wise that general health follows,
unless these external remedies were capable at the same time of removing the
internal morbid state inseparable from the local affection, and unless by their
topical application they had affected the whole organism with their curative
power."
The second and third editions have a different note:
"The merely external remedies, however, act, as has been said, very seldom
in such a salutary and perfect manner, and only under certain conditions
difficult to be combined, which are something like the following: The remedy
used externally must also be the only one that is useful when administered
internally, the homeopathic remedy for the whole morbid state, applied in
the most powerful form, in the most penetrating mode of application on a
large surface of the skin in its most sensitive parts, or on places deprived of
the epidermis. And yet, with all these united advantages, it is not clear if the
radical cure of the whole, consequently also of the internal malady, will be or
is perfectly attained by the external employment of the medicine. We can
only be certain that such is the case if a long period of good health follows its
use. It is therefore a dangerous risk to cover a large surface of the skin, still
more if divested of its cuticle, with a very powerful medicine, for in that case
we shall not be able properly to regulate and moderate the dose penetrating to
the inner life, not to speak of the danger that the possibly unhomoeopathic
remedy may only burn away or dry up the disease, or may merely drive it off
from the external parts in some other way, thus making the unremoved
disease thereafter all the worse and still more difficult to cure. Thus it is
easy to understand the advantages of the only internal treatment of a disease
attended by a local morbid process by means of an internal homœopathic
remedy in suitable dose, for then the simultaneous cure of the local affection
affords the surest proof of the complete eradication of the whole disease."
To § 196:
The first edition has "It seems."
To § 196 (2nd ref.):
Instead of the remainder of the paragraph as we find it here, the first
edition has-
"Seeing that the local malady generally strives to
isolate itself, though it cannot do so completely in the living
body, and that medicines are observed to produce a more
rapid effect on the seat of their application than on more
remote parts.
1
"1 The injection of cherry-laurel water into the anus of animals shows its
spasmodic action first in the lower extremities, later in the upper parts, and
on the upper parts first when it is introduced into the stomach."
To § 198:
In the first three editions the substance of this paragraph is distributed
through four sections, which need not be reproduced here, as they contain
nothing of importance.
To § 201:
No paragraph corresponding to this is found in the first edition,
278
APPENDIX.
To § 201, note:
The last clause of this note, from “but,” is found in the fifth edition only.
To § 203:
The treatment of local diseases, with which §§ 185-203 are occupied, take
up many more paragraphs in the first three editions, but as the views expressed
in them are not of much importance, and are generally superseded by those of
the later editions, there is no need to reproduce them. Some of the notes
appended are, however, interesting. This is how they stand in the third
edition :
"§ 214. In some chronic diseases this waking up of
the rest of the symptoms after the removal of the local
malady occurs so gradually that the aggravation is only
observed after a considerable time.¹
1
"The most striking example of this is furnished by the venereal disease.
When the chancre becomes visibly developed several days after infection, this
proves that the whole body was already entirely syphilitic before it appeared,
otherwise it could not have occurred. Soon after infection and even before
the chancre appears as a small vesicle, soon changing into a little open ulcer,
with itching, pricking sensations, sensitive persons experience distinct signs of
general indisposition, which (though less felt by some) are indications of the
disease spreading through the whole organism. And even when the general
symptoms are less apparent, the complete infection of the whole organism
before the outbreak of the chancre is incontestably proved by this, that
even excision of the chancre on its very first appearance does not diminish,
let alone destroy, the total disease (Petit, in Fabre, Lettres, supplement à son
traité des maladies vénériennes, Paris, 1786); the other venereal symptoms,
the syphilis, breaks out sooner or later, proving that the chancre was not an
independent local malady—as, indeed there are few, but only a distinct sign
of the venereal disease already domiciled in the whole body.
"As long as the chancre remains on its seat, it remains the chief symptom,
representing the greater part of the internal general venereal disease, and, as
long as it is left undisturbed, it hinders more or less by its presence the other
troublesome symptoms from breaking out. If not interfered with it abides,
growing larger as time goes on, on the same spot if not driven off by local
remedies, to the end of his life, even in the most robust individuals, demon-
strating thereby the importance of the internal disease. If it had not an
independent great internal disease for its foundation, of which it is the
chief representative symptom, how easily would an ulcer, so small at first,
be cured by the natural power!
"But were we to act as the ordinary physician does, and burn the chancre
away, or apply to this local symptom a remedy that destroys and removes it
locally, or the black oxyde of mercury, this local symptom representing the
internal venereal disease would generally be annihilated on the spot, but to
the great injury of the patient.
"The general condition not only remains just as syphilitic as when the
chancre was present, but the internal general venereal disease, which, as its
nature is, goes on gradually but constantly increasing, now replaces the
APPENDIX.
279
loss of the chancre (this chief symptom, which hitherto drew off, as it
were, and mitigated the intensity of the internal malady) by developing
the other hitherto latent symptoms, and by the production of new acci-
dents which are much worse than the dispelled chancre. The sufferings
incident to the general disease now burst forth soon (inguinal buboes) or late
(often only after many months) as ulceration of the tonsils, eruption of
papules or spots, flat, painless, smooth, round, cutaneous ulcers, rough
growths on the uvula or on the alæ nasi; or show themselves as constant
tickling cough with purulent expectoration, stiffness of the joints, noc-
turnally painful swellings of periosteum and bones, &c.
"All these symptoms of syphilis, which increase as time goes on, are
however, never so distinct, persistent and constant as the driven-off chancre
was. They readily disappear for a time by the administration of mercury
internally, but either return occasionally or give place to other venereal
symptoms of one kind or another; in short, we are never sure of the cure and
complete eradication of the general disease. If after the local destruction of
the chancre we give too little of the medicine or non-remedial preparations
of it, the disease will not be annihilated, but will in time break out again.
But if we give the mercurial remedy for a long time, in order to bring a
large quantity gradually into the system (for quickly repeated, large doses of
the ordinary acrid irritating preparations would, as is well known, destroy
the strength too rapidly), we shall not attain our end, and in consequence of
the unstable character of these symptoms we shall never know if and when
the disease has been eradicated.
"But by the long-continued employment of such a powerful artificial
morbific agent as mercury is (especially when the syphilis is complicated with
the psoric dyscrasia) an insidious mercurial disease (compounded of the other
symptoms, not of those homeopathically suited to the venereal disease)* is
added to the old malady, and the two unite to form that sad combination
commonly called masked venereal disease, which cannot be cured, either by
mercury alone or by hepar sulphuris alone.†
"On the other hand, if the important local symptom, the chancre-the
most permanent, unchanging of all venereal phenomena—remain undisturbed
during the internal treatment, and be not treated topically, it heals up per-
fectly of itselft during the appropriate only internal use of the most
powerfully antisyphilitic mercurial preparation, but never before the entire
disease is as perfectly annihilated and cured by the internal remedy. If the
chancre is healed and the part covered with sound skin by internal treatment
only, so also is the entire disease eradicated, without the slightest doubt.§
"Of a similar character are the diseases which make their appearance
after the enucleation of old steatomatous tumours, as Brüninghausen and
* These two parenthetical observations are not in the first edition.
In the last clause the first edition has no "alone," but adds, "but is
aggravated by both the one and the other."
‡ The first edition says here that if the chancre is only partially burnt
off, condylomata make their appearance in the place.
§ Almost the same views regarding syphilis are expressed by Hahnemann
in his work on Venereal Diseases (1789, v. Lesser Writings), and in the first
part of his Chronic Diseases,
280.
APPENDIX.
especially Richter (Anfangsgr. d. Wundarz., Gött., 1787, i Th., pp. 302—308)
observed. The latter saw the removal of encysted tumours followed sometimes
by the growth of fresh ones, sometimes by suppuration, paralysis and caries of
bones. So also the diseases that always lie at the root of old ulcers of the legs,
and when this serious local symptom is suppressed by a desiccating topical
remedy, a general malady often dangerous to life develops itself. And so it
is with an immense number of other diseases whose local symptoms should
be cured only by treating the entire disease with internal homeopathic reme-
dies, without the employment of any external remedy, if we desire to act in
a radical manner and consonant with nature, namely, by the internal adminis-
tration only of a medicinal agent corresponding in exact similarity to the
totality of the symptoms, which, by the complete annihilation of the entire
disease, naturally cures at the same time also its chief symptom, the so-
called local malady. (It is sometimes advantageous to support the place
where the old injury has been healed with mechanical and physical appliances,
and to raise the tone of the weakened parts, e. g. by cold foot-baths, circular
bandages, &c. The contact of a powerful mesmeriser seems to aid greatly
in removing the remainder of a severe local malady-vide below, § 293."
Another note runs as follows:
“The often very acute lamentable consequences of the merely local annihila-
tion of many, especially old cases of scabies, ringworm, chronic tetters, ulcers
of the legs, &c., many hundred instances of which are recorded in medical
works, show clearly how great and important is the internal dyscrasia to
which these local symptoms owe their origin when it is deprived of the local
symptom that diverts upon itself the danger of the rest of the symptoms
(by mercurial, lead or zinc preparations sprinkled over them or applied in
ointments) without our having previously cured the internal disease. Then the
rest of the symptoms formerly latent (only perhaps occasionally appearing on
the partial suppression of the local malady, e. g. by a chill), not easily detected
except by a very acute observer, often appear suddenly in their true original
form and intensity; spasmodic pains in the abdomen, bowels, womb, bladder,
hitherto only rarely occurring, increase to a kind of painful hysteria—mental
weakness, heretofore only occasionally noticed, increases to imbecility and
insanity—a slight cough and rare attacks of dyspnoea break out into suffo-
cating pulmonary ulceration or galloping consumption—a slight swelling of
the feet passes rapidly into general dropsy—a rarely occurring weakness of
sight and hardness of hearing turn, almost before we are aware of it, into
amaurosis and deafness-a giddiness of infrequent occurrence changes into
apoplexy—that is to say, these morbid states appear now in the form and
intensity they originally possessed when they no longer have the local
affection that mitigated their severity.
"Shallow-minded people who can only think of spiritual things as material,
to be grasped with the hands as it were, and moved like a machine, imagine
that the serious diseases following the destruction of the local affection are a
recession of the morbid matter, or an absorption of it by the lymphatic
vessels, whereby the disease now first develops and evolves itself in the
interior. No! The internal disease was already there while the local sym-
ptom was still going on in the external parts (as an occasional outbreak of a
moderate character, whereby the local malady was proportionally diminished,
APPENDIX.
281
shows), but it was restrained from bursting forth violently and dangerously.
'An apparently robust candidate for the ministry, who had to preach the follow-
ing day, and on that account wished to get rid of a long-standing itch, rubbed
himself all over with itch ointment, and he was seized with anxiety, dyspnoea
and tenesmus immediately after a meal, and died in a few hours. The post-
mortem examination showed the whole lung filled with liquid pus,' which could
not possibly have been produced in these few hours, but must have been there
previously, but hitherto kept subdued and rendered innocuous by the local
symptom (the eruption spread over the skin). See Unzer's Arzt, ccc St.,
p. 508.
"On the other hand, the great persistency, often also the extreme painful-
ness of the local symptom, which frequently torments the patient for many
years and grows bigger and becomes worse (e. g. the old leg ulcers of aged
persons), shows how terrible and frightful the internal disease must be, for
which it serves as a derivative alleviating substitute on the least dangerous
part of the organism, the external parts, and is the cause of the frequent
occurrence of rapid death, soon after the destruction of the local affection,
under the treatment of the practitioners of ordinary medicine (e. g. by drying
up ulcers of the legs by means of oxyde of zinc).
"Are the often dangerous acute or chronic diseases that appear after the
removal of plica polonica anything else than the plica disease previously
present, although hitherto latent, and seldom manifesting itself during the
continuance of the local symptom? The former were only fully aroused when
they were deprived of the palliative silencer of the internal general disease,
the vicarious local symptom, the plica polonica, that matting together of the
hair changed from its roots into a sensitive abnormal organ.
The same
general disease precedes the outbreak of the plica, it becomes milder when
the latter develops itself and transfers all its intensity and dangerous
character to this local symptom. But however long it may be kept in
abeyance by the undisturbed presence of this vicarious abnormal organ (the
patients feel tolerably well as long as the plica is let alone) the internal
disease wakes from the latent state, in which it has hitherto existed, with great
violence, when robbed of this chief symptom that has served as its substitute
to a great extent, when the plica closely attached to the head is cut off.
"How stupid, how criminal, is not, therefore, the procedure of ordinary
physicians who regard the external malady as not belonging to, and as
separated from, the rest of the body, as merely a disease of this particular
part, and labour to remove from view this external affection by external
remedies only, without curing the important internal disease from which it
originates!"
In the following note the topical application of certain remedies is
sanctioned:
"Different diseases demand different rules of treatment. For example, it
is improper and unjustifiable to apply topical remedies to chancres, old or
recent, which often have a great tendency to yield quickly to local remedies;
and it is equally bad for the patient's future state to apply so-called dis-
cutient or desiccating remedies to venereal buboes and inguinal ulcers; it is
only by the internal administration of the best mercurial preparation that
the entire disease can be cured so thoroughly that, without the aid of external
.
282
APPENDIX.
remedies, the chancre and the inguinal ulcer are perfectly cured both
together. It is not necessary in the case of old or recent scabies to employ
sulphur externally in addition to giving the best antipsoric remedy internally.
"But in some kinds of not very extensive facial cancers arsenic has long
been employed externally, sometimes with apparently good effect. This
corrosive metallic oxyde laid on in substance sets up a severe local inflamma-
tion, whereby the ulcerated surface is destroyed. If the organism possesses
much vital power it often quickly repairs the destroyed part by a good
cicatrix. If now the internal general dyscrasia which lies at the root of the
facial ulcer is cured at the same time by the internal administration of the
appropriate homœopathic medicine (for otherwise the patient will remain ill
and ailing in some other way) there ensues a perfect cure of the entire disease,
as in this case the arsenic gave the needful help to the local symptom.*
"The condylomatous disease which was so extensively spread during the
French wars from 1809 to 1814, but has become rarer the last five or six
years, is a product of the infection of the whole organism, chiefly by sexual
intercourse. It usually causes a bad sort of urethral or preputial gonorrhoea;
there sprout up growths most frequently behind the corona glandis, thereafter
on the other parts of the genitals. These often exude moisture and bleed
readily. They are oftenest found when the gonorrhoea is stopped by external
desiccating things and by injections. But they sometimes, though more
rarely, come on alone after infection, without previous gonorrhoea, in the
form of dry warts on those parts. These growths are the local symptom of
disease, just as the chancre is that of the syphilitic malady. These two
diseases have nothing in common with one another in their essential nature,
and yet the condylomatous disease, because it too is caused by infection
during coition, was held to be identical with the venereal chancrous disease,
and it was treated fruitlessly and injuriously with mercury; but as this metal
was of no use, but rather aggravated the disease, recourse was had to the
destruction of the condylomata by the most powerful means, by caustics,
cautery, cutting and ligature, and then the disease was said to be cured.
But no real amelioration was caused by this one-sided destruction of the local
symptom―on the contrary, everything was made worse; the internal condylo-
matous dyscrasia burst out in aggravated form. Then either the fig-warts,
as often happens, appear in greater numbers on the genitals, or they come
out on the anus, in the axillæ, on the neck, on the scalp, but especially in the
buccal cavity and on the lips, or there occur other serious affections of the
body (shortening of the tendons, &c.). But if we employ against this peculiar
miasmatic dyscrasia the juice of thuja, which I first discovered to be homoeo-
pathic in this disease (v. Mat. Med. Pura, vol. ii, Engl. edit.) in a very small
dose of the decillion-fold dilution internally, and as soon as this internal remedy
has caused considerable amelioration, bathe the condylomata externally with
the undiluted juice of thuja, we shall attain our object with all the greater
certainty of perfect external and internal cure, for the mild juice of this
homœopathic remedy applied simultaneously to the local symptom assists and
completes the internal treatment, and we thereby avoid all improper local
destruction of the fig-warts. This is almost the only chronic miasmatic
* Compare this with the note to § 205 of the fifth edit.
APPENDIX.
283
disease with local symptom, which when it has attained a great height permits
of the employment of the homœopathic remedy also externally."
To § 210:
"*
The first edition makes two paragraphs of this. The mention of psora in
this paragraph occurs first in the fourth edition.
To § 221:
This and the two following paragraphs appear first in the fourth edition.
To § 222, note:
This note first appears in the fifth edition.
To § 228:
This and the following paragraph constitute but one paragraph in the
second and third editions. With the two following paragraphs they are
merely subdivisions of a note to § 198 of the first edition very slightly
altered.
To § 231:
This and § 232 appear first in the second edition.
To § 232:
§§ 232-244 have nothing corresponding to them in the first edition. The
following only is to be found there :
"§ 199. All other diseases require for their cure no
special directions. They all come under the eternal law
of homoeopathy, to which there is no exception."
To § 232, note:
From "when the new state" in this note to the end constitutes § 247 of the
second and third editions, and is followed by three other paragraphs that
are omitted from the fourth and fifth editions. They are —
"§ 248. In the treatment of these untypical alternating
diseases our chief efforts should be directed to select, if
possible, a remedy which corresponds to all these alter-
nating states, contains almost all of them in its patho-
genesis, and this remedy will then specifically and rapidly
extinguish the entire disease at once.
"§ 249. Where, however, the morbid alternating
states are, from their nature, perfectly opposite to one
another (where, for example, periods of dull quiet melan-
cholia alternate with periods of hilarious, wanton mad-
ness), in such a case the selected remedy can seldom
correspond homoeopathically to both states; for if its
action is homœopathically suitable for the one state, it
can only serve in a palliative (antipathic) manner for the
opposite alternating state of the disease. But this is no
* The same combined internal and external treatment of sycosis is recom-
mended in the last edition of the Chronic Diseases,
284
APPENDIX.
hindrance to the complete cure, as little as in disease
that remains always the same (v. note to § 67, fifth
edition), where the most characteristic and chief symptoms
are covered by the remedy homoeopathically, but the rest
only antipathically (palliatively). Nevertheless perfect
health ensues in both cases, especially when the medicine
corresponds in similarity of symptoms (homœopathically)
to the stronger of the two opposite alternating states
(they always differ in strength); in that case the pallia-
tive action of the same remedy more than suffices for the
opposite state.
"§ 250. In such cases the most appropriate dose of
the carefully selected remedy is most suitably admin-
istered immediately after the cessation of the stronger
alternating state,-that is to say, immediately at the com-
mencement of that period of the disease to which the
medicine only corresponds antipathically (palliatively).
Seldom will a second dose of the same remedy be required,
because the medicine, if it was suitable, will have removed
the entire disease even before the expiry of its period
of action; and if it was not suitable, it must not be con-
tinued longer, nor any further dose be administered, but
some other medicine as suitable as possible for the altered
morbid state then presenting itself (§ 167, fifth edition).”
To § 234:
This paragraph appears first in the fourth edition.
To § 235:
§§ 252, 253 of the second and third editions are here condensed into one.
To § 240:
This paragraph appears first in the fourth edition.
To § 241:
This and § 242 occur first in the fifth edition.
To § 243:
This and the next paragraph occur first in the fourth edition.
To § 245:
This forms two paragraphs in the first three editions.
To § 246:
§§ 246-248 take the place of §§ 202-207 of the first, §§ 260—266 of
second and third, and §§ 241-247 of the fourth edition, for the reasons
stated in note to § 246 of the fifth edition. Subjoined are these superseded
paragraphs as they appear in the fourth edition, which differs here but
slightly from the first. It will be seen from them how completely Hahne-
mann changed his practice in regard to the repetition of the medicine,
APPENDIX.
285
""
§ 241. It is the more necessary to bear this in mind
because we do not know with certainty the precise limits
of the duration of the action on the healthy body of any
medicine even when taken in large doses, still less in the
small doses used in homoeopathy in such diverse diseases¹
and in patients with such different constitutions.
1 "From the most acute to the most chronic-because the duration of the
action of a homœopathic dose of medicine conforms to the duration of the
action of the disease in every case; hence in the most acute it is exhausted in
a few hours, whereas the very same dose will need several weeks to complete
its action in the most chronic diseases.
In the third edition the note runs as follows:
"Some medicines have almost exhausted their action, even in large doses, in
twenty-four hours. This is the shortest duration of action of vegetable
medicines known to me, and is met with in very few. (The duration of the
action of cherry-laurel water and the naphthas may perhaps be shorter.) Other
medicines complete their action only in several days, a few indeed in several
weeks. The very small medicinal doses used in the homeopathic system
naturally act for a shorter and much shorter time than the larger and
largest. But this can only be ascertained from the effect observed in every
particular case, but never hypothetically determined.*
"§ 242. As long, therefore, as the progressive improve-
ment continues from the medicine last administered, so
long we can take for granted does the duration of the
action of the helpful medicine, in this case at least, con-
tinue, and hence all repetition of any dose of medicine is
forbidden.
"§ 243. Besides this, if the medicine acted in a proper
homoeopathic manner, the improved state remains observ-
able even after the expiry of its action. The good
work is not immediately interrupted if no second dose of
medicine is administered several hours-in chronic diseases
even several days after the cessation of the action of the
former medicine. The part of the disease that has
already been annihilated cannot be renewed, and the im-
provement will still be plainly noticeable for a consider-
able time, even without any fresh dose of medicine.
((
§ 244. If the improvement from the first dose of the
homoeopathically appropriate medicine will not eventuate
in health (which is seldom the case in acute diseases) a
* The last two clauses are not in the first edition.
286
APPENDIX.
period of pause in the improvement-usually the limit
of the duration of action of the dose of medicine previously
administered-will ensue, before the appearance of which
it would be not only useless and irrational, but even im-
proper and hurtful to give another dose of medicine.
"§ 245. Even one dose of the same medicine which
has up to now proved so beneficial, if repeated before the
improvement has begun to stand still in every direction, will—
like an untimely interference-only aggravate the state;
for the very first dose of the best selected medicine will,
after the expiry of its period of action appropriate to the
nature of the disease, have effected all the good, all the de-
sired changes—the degree of health attainable by it up till
now-the medicine is capable of at this time, and a fresh
dose of it will alter this good state, consequently must
make it worse by the production of its other unhomoeo-
pathic symptoms,—that is to say, create an unhomœopathic
medicinal disease mixed up with the rest of the symptoms.
of the disease, consequently a kind of complicated and
aggravated disease. In one word, we disturb the amelio-
ration effected and still to be expected from the first
dose, if we give a second dose of the same originally well-
chosen remedy before the expiry of the period of action
of the first; at all events, we thereby delay the recovery.
"§ 246. If this improvement, which has up till now
only gone forward but not yet attained to perfect cure,
now comes to a stop, we shall then, on careful investiga-
tion of what remains of the improved disease, discover
some though perhaps small alteration in the group of
symptoms, for which a fresh dose of the hitherto efficacious
medicine is no longer homoeopathically suitable, but some
other will be more appropriate for these remaining sym-
ptoms.
((
§ 247. If, then, the first dose of the best selected
medicine has not been able to effect a perfect restoration
of the health in the time during which its action lasts-
which it can do in most cases of recently developed, new
diseases—there is evidently nothing better to be done for
the remaining though improved morbid state than to
APPENDIX.
287
I
administer a dose of another medicine most homœo-
pathically adapted for the remainder of the symptoms."
To § 246, note:
* This note, with the exception of the last paragraph, forms part of the
preface by Hahnemann to Bönninghausen's Rep. der Antipsor. Arz., 1833.
The remainder of the preface is in the note to § 288. It is only found in
the fifth edition.
Hahnemann's latest practice with respect to the administration and repe-
tition of the medicine, is thus described in the preface to the third part of the
second edition of his work on Chronic Diseases, published in 1837:
"Since I last addressed the public on the subject of our system of medicine,
I have had opportunities of making observations, among other things, on the
best possible mode of regulating the doses for the patients, and I here
communicate what I have found to be the best plan in this respect.
"If a small globule of one of the highest dynamizations of a medicine laid
dry on the tongue, or moderate olfaction in a phial containing one or several
of such globules, show itself to be the smallest, weakest dose, of the shortest
duration of action (though there are plenty of patients of such an excitable
nature as to be affected thereby to a sufficient extent for the cure of slight
acute diseases, for which the remedy has been homoeopathically selected), we
can easily understand that the incredible variety in patients as regards their
excitability, their age, their mental and corporeal development, their vital
force, and especially the nature of their disease (which in one case may be
natural and simple and of recent origin, in another natural, simple but of long
standing, in another complicated-the union of several miasms,—in another,
and this is the commonest and worst case, ruined by wrong medicinal treat-
ment and burdened with medicinal diseases) demands a great variety in their
treatment, as also in the regulation of the doses of medicine needful for
them.
"I must limit myself in this place to the latter subject only, as the others
must be left to the accuracy, diligence and judgment of the practitioner who
is competent and master of his art, and cannot be arranged in tables for the
benefit of the incompetent or careless.
CC
Experience has taught me, as it has also, doubtless, the best of my fol-
lowers, that it is more useful in diseases of any importance (the most acute
not excepted, and all the more in the subacute, chronic and the most chronic)
to give to the patient the powerful homeopathic medicinal globule or globules
in solution only, and this solution in divided doses; for example, a solution
formed with from seven to twenty table-spoonfuls of water, without any
addition, given to the patient in acute and very acute diseases, every six, four
or two hours, and when the danger is very great, even every hour or every
half-hour, a table-spoonful at a time, or in the case of delicate persons and
children only a small part of a table-spoonful (one or two teaspoonfuls).
"In chronic diseases I found it best to allow a dose (to wit, a spoonful) of
such a solution of the appropriate medicine to be taken not seldomer than
every two days, but more generally every day.
"But as water (even when distilled) begins to spoil after a few days,
whereby also the power of the small quantity of medicine it contains is
288
APPENDIX.
destroyed, the addition of a small quantity of spirits of wine was requisite,
or where this was impracticable or could not be borne, I allowed instead a
few small bits of hard-wood charcoal to be put in the aqueous solution, whereby
my object was accomplished; only in the latter case the fluid becomes after a
few days of a blackish colour, from the shaking which is necessary before
taking each dose, as will presently be seen.
"Before going farther I must make the important observation that our
vital principle does not well admit of the same unaltered dose of medicine
being given to the patient even twice, still less several times in succession.
For then either the good effects of the former dose will be partly done away
with, or there appear new symptoms and sufferings dependent on the medi-
cine, and that were not formerly present in the disease, which obstruct the
cure; in a word, the medicine, though it may have been chosen accurately
homœopathic, acts awry, and attains the end in view either imperfectly or
not at all. Hence the many contradictions of homoeopathists among them-
selves in respect to the repetition of the dose.
"But if, for the repeated administration of one and the same medicine
(which is indispensable in order to obtain the cure of a great chronic
disease), the dose be each time changed and modified, although but slightly
so, in its degree of dynamization, the vital force of the patient accepts
quietly and as it were willingly the same medicine, even at short intervals,
an incredible number of times, with the best result, and each time to the in-
creased advantage of the patient.
"This small alteration of the degree of dynamization may be effected by
shaking the phial in which is the solution of the single globule (or several
of them) with five or six smart jerks of the arm before each time of
taking it.
"When the physician has allowed the several table-spoonfuls of such a
solution to be taken successively in this manner (yet so that when the
remedy has one day produced too powerful an action he lets the dose be
omitted for a day), he then, if the medicine continues to show itself useful,
takes one or two globules of the same medicine of a lower potency (e. g. if
he have previously employed the thirtieth dilution he now uses one or two
globules of the twenty-fourth), dissolves them in about the same number of
table-spoonfuls of water by shaking the bottle, again adds a little spirits of
wine or a few pieces of charcoal, and allows this solution to be used to the
end in the same way or at longer intervals, and even somewhat less at a
time, but each time only after shaking it five or six times, as long as the
remedy continues to effect improvement and no new symptoms of the medi-
cine (never experienced by other patients) appear, in which case another
medicine must be employed. But if only the symptoms of the disease
appear, but increase considerably under the continued and even moderated
use of the medicine, then is it time to discontinue it for one or two weeks or
even longer, and we may expect to see striking improvement from it.¹
1 "In the treatment of cases of acute disease the homoeopathic physician
goes to work in a similar manner. He dissolves one or two globules of the
highly potentized well-selected medicine, in seven, ten or fifteen table-spoon-
fuls of water (without any addition) by shaking the bottle, and lets the
APPENDIX.
289
"After such a portion has been taken and the same medicine is still
found to be necessary, if the physician wishes to prepare a fresh portion of
the same degree of potency for the patient, it is requisite first to shake the
new solution as many times as the number of succussions given to the former
one amount to, and a few times more, before the patient takes the first dose
of it; at the subsequent doses, however, only five or six times again.
"In this manner the homoeopathic physician will obtain all the benefit
from a well-selected medicine which could be expected for this chronic disease
by giving it by the mouth.
"But if the diseased organism be acted on by the physician with the same
medicine at the same time on other sensitive parts besides the nerves of the
mouth and alimentary canal-if, I say, the same medicine which is found
salutary be at the same time rubbed in externally in an aqueous solution
(even in but a small quantity) on one or more parts of the body which are
most free from morbid affections (e. g. on an arm or a leg or a thigh un-
affected by any skin disease, pains or cramps), by this means the salutary action
will be much increased; the limbs to be rubbed in this manner may be, more-
over, changed. In this way the physician gains much more advantage from
the homœopathically suited medicine for the patient affected by a chronic
disease, and can cure him much more rapidly than by merely administering
it by the mouth.
"This mode of employing the medicine (that has been found useful inter-
nally) by rubbing it into the skin of the surface of the body, which has
been very much tested by me and is uncommonly efficacious, and is attended
by the most strikingly happy results, explains those rare miraculous cures in
which patients with a sound skin, who had long been cripples, recovered
rapidly and for ever by bathing a few times in a mineral water the medicinal
constituents of which were by accident homœopathically suited for their
chronic disease. I
patient, according as the disease is more or less acute, more or less dangerous,
take a whole or half tablespoonful (or even less if it is a child), every half,
whole, or every two, three, four or six hours (after well shaking the bottle
each time). If the physician observe the occurrence of no new symptoms,
he goes on with it at these intervals, until the symptoms at first present
begin to increase; then he gives it more rarely and in smaller doses.
'In the cholera, as is well known, the suitable remedy must often be
given at much shorter intervals.
"Children should get these solutions always only out of their ordinary
drinking mugs; a table- or tea-spoon for drinking with is something quite
unusual and suspicious to them, and for that reason they reject this tasteless
liquid. Some sugar may, however, be added to it for them.
1 "On the other hand, they were proportionately injurious in patients who
suffered from ulcers and cutaneous eruptions, which, as happens from other
external remedies, they repelled from the skin, whereupon, after a transient
restoration of the patient's vital force, the internal, uncured disease settled
in another part of the body much more important for life and health, so that
in place of these affections the crystalline lens grew opaque, the optic nerve
became paralysed, the hearing was lost, pains of countless kinds tormented
19
290
APPENDIX.
"The limb to be subjected to friction for this purpose must, as has been
said, be free from cutaneous disease; moreover, in order to permit the occur-
rence of some change and variety, if several limbs are free from cutaneous
diseases, one limb after another, alternately, on different days (by preference
on the days when no internal medicine is taken) should be rubbed by means
of the hand with a small quantity of the medicinal solution, until it becomes
dry. For this purpose also the bottle must previously have been shaken five
or six times.
"But convenient though this mode of procedure be, and though it certainly
expedite very much the cure of chronic diseases, I have yet often found that
the larger quantity of spirits of wine, or the several small pieces of char-
coal it was requisite to add to the watery solution in order to keep it sweet
in warm weather, were always distasteful to some patients.
"I have, therefore, latterly found the following mode of operation prefer-
able for scrupulous patients. From a mixture composed of about five table-
spoonfuls of pure water and as many of French brandy-which should be
kept in readiness in a stoppered bottle-two, three or four hundred drops
(according as it is desired to have a stronger or weaker medicinal solution)
should be dropped into a phial, which it should fill about half full, wherein the
small medicinal powder or the globule or globules lie; this should be corked
up and shaken until the medicine is dissolved. Of this, one, two, three or,
if the irritability and vital powers of the patient seem to require it, a few
drops more, should be dropped into a cup containing a tablespoonful of
water, which should be briskly stirred and given to the patient and, where
greater caution is requisite, the half of it only should be given, and a similar
half-spoonful may very well be used for rubbing in, in the way described.
"On the days when the latter only is employed, the small drop-phial must
be each time shaken strongly five or six times, just as when the medicine is
used internally, and the medicinal drop or drops, together with the table-
spoonful of water, should likewise be well stirred up in the cup.
CC
It is better, instead of a cup, to use a phial containing a tablespoonful of
water, and to drop the required number of drops of medicine into it; it is
then in like manner to be shaken five or six times, and the whole or half of
it drunk.
"In the treatment of chronic diseases it is often more useful that the
ingestion, and also the rubbing in, should be done in the evening shortly
before going to bed, for then there is less chance of any disturbance from
without than when it is performed in the morning.
"As long as I gave the medicines undivided, each all at once in a little
water, I found that potentizing the dilution bottles with ten succussions
acted too strongly (their medicinal powers became too highly developed),
and hence I advised but two shakes to be given. But for the last few years,
since I can now distribute each dose of medicine, in an indestructible
the patient, his intellectual organs suffered, his spirits became affected, spas-
modic asthma threatened to suffocate him, a fit of apoplexy carried him off,
or some other dangerous or intolerable ailment appeared in their stead.
Hence the rubbing in of the homeopathic internal medicine should never be
employed on spots that are affected by an external disease.”
APPENDIX.
291
solution, over fifteen, twenty, thirty days, and even a longer period, no
potentizing of the dilution phials is too strong for me, and I again prepare
each with ten jerks of the arm. I must, therefore, herewith retract what I
said three years since in the first part of this work, p. 186.
"In cases where, along with extreme weakness, there was great irritability
on the part of the patient, and only smelling at a phial in which were a few
small globules of the required medicine was admissible, when it was necessary
to continue the medicine for several days, I let the patient smell daily in a
different phial containing globules of the same medicine, but every time in a
lower degree of potency, once or twice with each nostril, according as I
wished to make a smaller or a greater impression."
The note to § 246 is remarkable as containing Hahnemann's direction to give
all medicines in the thirtieth dilution in both chronic and acute diseases. This
potency he elsewhere informs us he adopted for the sake of uniformity.
Previous to recommending this uniform dose, Hahnemann had advised different
doses for different medicines according as they varied from one another in
power and energy. The variations in Hahnemann's posology at different
periods of his life may be seen in an article by Dr. Hughes in the 36th vol.
of the Brit. Journ. of Hom., p. 113. But that Hahnemann did not stick to
the thirtieth dilution as the proper dose in all cases is evident from various
passages in his writings. Thus, in the last edition of the Chronic Diseases, he
directs that when a medicine requires to be repeated it should invariably be
given in a lower dilution. He likewise says in the same work that nitric
acid should be given for condylomata in the sixth dilution, thuja in the
thirtieth, twenty-fourth, eighteenth, twelfth and sixth dilutions, petroselinum
in drop doses of the fresh juice. In 1836 he writes to Dr. C. Hering
(Hom. World, xxvi, 77) to send him the third trituration of lachesis and
crotalus. In 1841 he begs Dr. Lehmann, of Coethen, who prepared all his
medicines, to send him the third trituration of some medicines, a list of
which he encloses (see facsimile letter, Lesser Writings). On the other
hand, he seems also to have occasionally given medicines in higher dilutions
(v. § 287, third note). In short, Hahnemann's practice shows great variations
at different periods of his life in respect of the doses he gave. Generally, where
he had previously used lower, he subsequently gave higher dilutions, but that
was not always so, for he says in the first edition of the Chronic Diseases that
though he formerly gave the sixth attenuation of stannum he now finds the
third trituration the best dose; and it is noteworthy that in the last edition
of the Materia Medica Pura, published in 1833, he gives as specimens and
models of homoeopathic practice two cases which had already appeared in the
first edition, published in 1816, where the doses given were respectively the
pure juice of bryonia and the twelfth dilution of pulsatilla.
To § 249:
The corresponding paragraph in previous editions differs considerably from
this. This is how it runs in the fourth edition :
((
.
§ 248. Only when, before the expiry of the period
of action of a dose of medicine, the state of an urgent
disease has, on the whole, not improved, but rather become
aggravated—though may be only slightly-by new sym-
292
APPENDIX.
ptoms; when, consequently, the medicine has not been
selected homœopathically corresponding to the case in its
characteristic effects, a dose of a medicine more precisely
suited for the morbid state now present must be given,
even before the expiration of the period of action of the
medicine last administered."
To § 250:
The previous editions have after this paragraph the following, with slight
variations in each edition:
Fourth edition.-"§ 250. Even in chronic diseases it
is very seldom or never the case that nothing better can
be done, especially at first, than to prescribe the same
medicine twice in succession, even after the expiration of
the period of action of the first dose; for even when it
has done good the improvement effected by it must go
on for some time, and usually there is no indication for
the repetition of the same medicine, because what cannot
be improved by the first dose, a second or larger dose is
equally unable to cure."
In the first three editions we find the following:
Third edition." § 270. When, therefore, a thoroughly
suitable specific (homœopathic) remedy cannot at once be
found on account of the deficiency of medicines whose
pure effects have been ascertained, there will usually be
one or two next best medicines for the characteristic
original symptoms of the disease, one or other of which-
according to the morbid state in each case-may be useful
as an intercurrent remedy, so that its administration in
alternation with the chief medicine promotes the recovery
much more palpably than giving only the chief medicine,
most, though still imperfectly, suited amongst all those
we possess, two or three times in succession.
С.
§ 271. But should it be found that the most bene-
ficial procedure is to give solely and alone the best adapted
homœopathic chief medicine in uninterrupted succession
(in which rare case it must correspond very closely to the
chronic disease), experience will teach us that then a
smaller dose ought to be given every time, after the
expiry of the period of action of the preceding dose, in
APPENDIX.
293
order not to disturb the improvement (seeing that the
medicine becomes ever less and less necessary), but to
conduct the case to the desired end in the most direct and
natural way.
"§ 272. Therefore, as soon as the chronic disease has
for the time yielded to a thoroughly suitable homœo-
pathic remedy, i. e. specific or nearly specific for this case,
if the disease is a very chronic one (ten, fifteen or twenty
years old), a dose of the chief remedy must be given for
three or six months, at ever longer and longer intervals,
at last at intervals of several weeks (the intervals being
varied according to circumstances), but always in smaller
and smaller doses until all tendency of the organism to
the chronic dyscrasia has completely disappeared and is
extinguished; the neglect of this provision leaves the
best treatment incomplete and in ill repute."
The following is in the first four editions:
"§ 273. The careful observer discovers the time for
the repetition of the dose by the appearance of some
slight traces of one or other original symptom of the old
malady."
To § 251:
This is the expansion of a note in the fourth edition.
To § 252:
In the first three editions the first part of this paragraph runs thus:
"But should we find that such ever-decreasing doses
do not suffice to attain the desired end, and that the
patient must continue to have equally large or even larger
and frequently repeated doses of the still indicated homoeo-
pathic remedy in order to avoid a relapse, this is a sure
sign," &c.
1
To § 253, note 2:
Hahnemann generally uses the terms "low" and "lowest" when he talks
of increased degrees of "dilution or attenuation," but the corresponding
"potencies" he calls "high and highest."
To § 255:
This and the following paragraph are an expansion of one paragraph
(§ 218) of the first edition.
To § 256:
The following paragraphs appear in the first three editions:
294
APPENDIX.
Third edition.-"§ 279. As some primary-action sym-
ptoms of medicines on the healthy human body appear
several days later than others, the corresponding symptoms
in diseases cannot disappear sooner than at this period of
the treatment, even though the other symptoms have
yielded to the medicine; which is not surprising.¹
"For example, mercury, which exhibits its tendency to develop round
ulcers with elevated, inflamed, painful borders only after several days, in
some persons only after several weeks, can, on that account, when adminis-
tered internally in the venereal disease, cure the chancre only after the lapse
of several days.
(C
§ 280. If we have the choice, we should prefer for
the cure of chronic diseases medicines of longer duration
of action; on the other hand, for the cure of more rapid
acute diseases—that is to say, such diseases as have a
tendency to change their state frequently-medicines of
short duration of action.'
""
To § 257:
In the first edition "rational" is generally used in place of "true.”
To § 263:
The last two clauses in this paragraph appear first in the fourth edition.
To § 266:
This paragraph and note appear first in the second edition.
To § 268:
All previous editions have the following:
Fourth edition.-"§ 269. As every medicine acts most
precisely and effectually in solution, the sensible practi-
tioner will give in solution¹ all medicines which do not
require to be administered in the form of powder.2 All
other forms in which they have hitherto been used (pills,
electuaries, &c.) are to be rejected because the action of
the medicine on the living fibre is thereby rendered un-
certain and indeterminate³.
"1 Metallic salts dissolved in a large quantity of water soon decompose and
spoil; their dilutions for homeopathic employment cannot therefore be
made with water-which, moreover, is not suitable for dropping. Many
metallic salts cannot be dissolved immediately in spirits of wine, but if dis-
solved in 100 parts of water without being precipitated, they may be further
diluted with alcohol to as great an extent as the homœopathic practitioner
requires. We can proceed thus with all of them as described in the preface
to the pathogenesis of arsenic in the first volume of my Materia Medica Pura.
APPENDIX.
295
Sugar of lead alone becomes decomposed when a very little of its ever so diluted
watery solution is dropped into spirits of wine, and gradually falls to the bottom
of the vessel as carbonate of lead. All these difficulties are got rid of in the
following manner :-In the second part of my work on Chronic Diseases I
have described the best way of preparing the antipsoric medicines, also those
made from dry substances, in order to obtain them all in the simplest and
most uniform manner in fluid form with retention of all their medicinal
powers for homœopathic use, in the decillionfold dilution and potency. The
non-antipsoric medicines also are best prepared in the same manner. We
then have no need of metallic salts for medicines, for their acids cause an
alteration in the peculiar powers of the metals. The metals in their pure
form can thus be brought into alcoholic solution, as also the metallic oxydes, all
inflammable substances, such as petroleum, phosphorus, sulphur, vegetable,
animal and mineral charcoal (graphites), all resins and gum-resins, also
vegetable powders, all kinds of flour, &c.—in short, every medicinal substance
without the addition of anything that could diminish or alter their medicinal
power. Medicines that are only obtainable by chemical art the practitioner
should either prepare himself or have them made in his presence.*
*
"2 For instance, hepar sulphuris calcareum.
"3 Also the acid or basic constituents, extracted and isolated in recent times
by complicated laborious processes from some vegetable drugs (morphine,
strychnine, quinine, &c.), are present in the simple alcoholic tinctures, and it
is not necessary for the patient's use to separate them by such elaborate
methods unless we desire to have them in such a concentrated form as to
enable us to despatch men and beasts quickly with them-an achievement
the direct opposite of what is desired by the honest, careful physician."
To § 269:
This and the two following paragraphs appear first in the fifth edition.
§ 269 teaches the theory of dynamization by trituration and succussion for
the first time in the Organon, though the idea was already hinted at in 1829
in the concluding clause of the second note to § 278 of the fourth edition (note
to § 280 of the fifth edition). It was more explicitly stated in 1826 in the
note to Thuja (Mat. Med. Pura, ii, 649), which runs as follows:
:-"The dis-
covery that crude medicinal substances (dry and fluid) unfold their medicinal
power ever more and more by trituration or succussion with non-medicinal
things, and in greater degree the further, the longer and the stronger this tritu-
ration or succussion is carried on, so that all their material substance seems
gradually to be dissolved and resolved into pure medicinal spirit;—this dis-
covery, unheard of till made by me, is of unspeakable value;" and it was
elaborated, in 1827, in the short essay entitled "How can small doses," &c.
(in the second volume of the English edition of the Mat. Med. Pura), where
it is stated that "it deserves incontestably to be reckoned among the
greatest discoveries of this age."
To § 270, note :
Hahnemann's latest recorded notions respecting dynamization, as we find
them in the second edition of his Chronic Diseases, part 5, merit insertion in
this place, and it will be seen that in his later years he modified considerably
* In the first edition the corresponding note contains only a small portion
of this note; the last clause forms a separate aphorism (§ 233).
296
APPENDIX.
the opinions he has, in various places throughout the Organon, expressed on
the subject.
CC
"Actual dilutions," he says, are almost wholly confined to sapid and
coloured objects. A solution of salt or bitter substances becomes always more
tasteless the more water is mixed with it, and at length loses almost all taste,
though we may shake it as much as we please; and in like manner a solution
of a coloured substance becomes, by the admixture of more and more water, at
last almost quite colourless, and gains no increase of colour by any imagin-
able shaking.
"These are and continue to be true attenuations or dilutions, but not
dynamizations.
"Homœopathic dynamizations are real awakenings of the medicinal pro-
perties that lie dormant in natural bodies during their crude state, which
then become capable of acting in almost a spiritual manner upon our life—
that is to say, on our percipient (sensitive) and excitable (irritable) fibres.
These developments of properties (dynamizations) in crude medicinal sub-
stances, which were unknown before me, are accomplished, as I first taught,
by the trituration of dry substances in a mortar, but in the case of liquid
substances by succussion, which is nothing less than a trituration of them.
These preparations, therefore, cannot have the term dilutions' applied to
them, although every preparation of the sort, in order to potentize it higher—
that is to say, in order to awaken and develop still farther the medicinal pro-
perties that still lie latent in it-must first be again yet more attenuated, to
allow the trituration or succussion to penetrate more deeply into the essential
nature of the medicinal substance, and thus to liberate and bring to light the
more subtile part of the medicinal power that lies still deeper, which were
impossible to be effected by the greatest amount of trituration and succussion
of substances in a concentrated state.*
"We frequently read in homoeopathic writings that some one or other
found no effect from this or that high (dilution) dynamization of a medicine
in a certain case of disease, but that a lower one rendered the desired service
-whilst others saw more success attending higher ones. But the cause of
the great difference in the results is not investigated. What is to prevent
the preparer of homœopathic medicines (this should always be the homœo-
pathic practitioner himself; the weapons he uses against diseases he should
himself forge, he should himself whet)—what is to prevent him, in order that
he may obtain powerful dynamizations, in place of giving a few slovenly
shakes (whereby little more than dilutions are produced, which they ought
not to be), giving, for the preparation of each potency, to every phial which
contains one drop of the lower potency to ninety-nine drops of alcohol, ten,
twenty, fifty and even more strong succussions, performed against some hard
elastic body?
"The perfection of our, the only healing art, and the weal of the patients
appear well to deserve that the physician take the requisite pains to procure
for his medicines the proper, the greatest possible efficacy.
"Thus we obtain, even in the fiftieth potency (the new wiseacres have
hitherto ridiculed the thirtieth potency, and made use of the lower, little deve-
* Compare this with the last clause of the note to § 270.
APPENDIX.
297
loped, more massive medicinal preparations in large doses, whereby, however,
they were not able to effect what our system can do), each lower one of which
has been dynamized with an equal number of succussions, medicines of the
most penetrating efficacy, so that each of the minutest globules impregnated
with it, dissolved in much water, can be taken in small portions, and must
be so taken in order not to produce too violent effects in sensitive
patients, not to mention that such a mode of preparation develops almost
all the properties that lie hid in the essential nature of the medicinal
substance, which thereby alone can attain any activity.-Paris, 19th De-
cember, 1838."
-
Hahnemann's directions for the preparation of his diluted medicines,
though they varied from time to time as regards the number of succussions
to be given to each dilution, and as to the employment of trituration for the
so-called lower dilutions, never varied in respect of the diluting medium,
which for the triturations is always sugar of milk, and for the fluid attenua-
tions always alcohol. He also always directs each dilution to be made in a
separate phial, and succussions to be given to each. In fact, he tells us that
the development of power by means of the trituration of dry and the suc-
cussion of fluid medicines "deserves incontestably to be reckoned among the
greatest discoveries of this age" (Mat. Med. Pura, ii, 44). The mode of
preparing the dilutions generally adopted by the makers of so-called "high
potencies" discards all succussion, employs but one phial for all dilutions, and
uses in place of alcohol the ordinary drinking water of the place where
they are made, though Hahnemann expressly denounces the employment of
water as the diluting vehicle for his preparations (loc. cit.).
To § 271:
Chr. Dis., 2nd edit., art. Sulphur. Here Hahnemann says that though he
formerly considered the potentized tinct. sulph. sufficient, he has now found
that it is greatly inferior to the preparation made by triturating the sulphur
up to the third, and thereafter treating it with alcohol. In the tinct. sulph.
he says the alcohol seems only to extract a particular part of the sulphur, but
not all its constituents,—a notion at variance with the modern doctrine that
sulphur is an elementary substance.
To § 271, note :
The medicines alluded to are Arsenic and Pulsatilla. Detailed directions
for the preparation of his dilutions are also given in the second edition of
the Chronic Diseases, pt. 1. In this latter work Hahnemann recommends
that all medicines, the juices of plants as well as the earths, metals, salts,
and dry woods or barks, should be prepared by trituration up to the third
attenuation, then by dilution through twenty-seven phials, first with equal
parts of water and spirits of wine, then with spirits of wine only.
To §§ 272-274:
At the suggestion of Dr. Aegidi, Hahnemann was induced to try the effect
in diseases, especially chronic ones, of mixing two highly diluted medicines
and giving them in one dose. He was at first greatly pleased with the results
obtained, and intended to recommend this plan in the fifth edition of the
Organon, but was dissuaded from this by some of the most influential of his
disciples; instead of doing so he merely alludes to the proposal, mildly
denouncing it in the note to § 272.
298
APPENDIX.
To § 275:
This paragraph is followed in the first edition by the subjoined, which in
subsequent editions are replaced by the next three paragraphs:
"§ 238. For if this greater alteration in the organism,
caused by the excessive quantity of the medicine, be too
violent, owing to the dose selected being stronger than
necessary, though it may be very similar to the original
disease, besides the increased intensity of the homoeopathic
aggravation (§ 157, fifth edition), there ensues, at the very
least, an unnecessary weakening after the expiry of the
period of action of the medicament, and, if the dose was
very excessive, there occur, in addition to the increased
primary medicinal symptoms, some symptoms of its secon-
dary action, a kind of medicinal after-disease opposite in
character to the first.
"§ 239. Now, moreover, as scarcely any medicine can
be selected so perfectly homœopathic that it shall corre-
spond with mathematical accuracy and completeness in
every point to the totality of the disease symptoms (§ 156,
fifth edition), the new symptoms which, when the dose was
suitably small, were inconsiderable, are increased to serious
ailments of many kinds if the quantity of medicine given
was excessively large.
.
66
$240. For these and other reasons the rational prac-
titioner (who always adopts the best method in his prac-
tice because it is the best, and does not suffer himself to
be deterred from doing so by the dictates of blind custom)
will select the remedy that is suitable for the disease in
such a well-adapted dose that it shall hardly be able to
excite a semblance of aggravation of the disease,—that
is to say, shall hardly be able to dominate in the slightest
degree as a counter-disease force over the disease to be
cured.
"§ 241. This apparent aggravation and increase of the
disease under treatment by the homoeopathic remedy should
be scarcely perceptible, and then only in the first two or
three hours after its ingestion.
"§ 242. One of the chief maxims of the homœopathic
medical system is the following: The counter-disease force
APPENDIX.
299
(the remedy), chosen as appropriate as possible for the cure
of the natural disease, should be made only strong enough to
effect our purpose, and should not injure the body in the
least by unnecessary strength.
«С
§ 243. Now, as the smallest quantity of medicine
naturally deranges the organism least, we should choose
the very smallest doses, provided always they are a match
for the disease.”
To § 279:
The corresponding aphorism in the first edition says with regard to the size
of the dose (§ 244)—
"Hardly any dose of the homoeopathically selected
remedy can be so small that it shall not be stronger than
the natural disease, and that it shall not be able to over-
come it."
In the second and subsequent editions this aphorism is the same as
we see it in the fifth edition, and differs from the first edition in that it
makes the diminution of the dose to be limited by its power of causing a
primary aggravation of the patient's symptoms.
In the first edition only this aphorism is followed by the subjoined:
((
§ 245. In diseases the sensitiveness of the organism
to medicines, especially those employed homoeopathically,
is immensely increased. Of this the ordinary observer
has no conception; it is only known to the careful observer.
It is beyond all belief when the disease has attained a
great height.¹
"A patient struck down with typhus, insensible and comatose, with
burning hot skin bathed in perspiration, with stertorous respiration coming
from his open mouth in a jerky interrupted manner, &c., is restored to con-
sciousness and in a few hours to health by the smallest dose of opium, even
if it be a million times smaller than ever was administered by any physician
in the world. The sensitiveness of the diseased or ailing body attains such a
height in many cases that it is acted on and excited by external forces, the
existence of which is often denied because they display no obvious action
on healthy robust bodies and in many diseases for which they are not suitable.
Such a force is animal magnetism, that peculiar power that one living body
exercises over another by certain modes of touching or nearly touching, which
produces wonderful excitation in weak, delicate and sensitive persons of both
sexes. How inconceivably small the still always material doses of homœo-
pathic medicine may therefore be made in order to develop astonishing exci-
tation in the extremely sensitive diseased body!
>>
The substance of this aphorism and its note is found in the Med. of Exp.,
p. 528.
I
300
APPENDIX.
To § 280:
The following note occurs here in the fourth edition :
CC
'My labours in this matter, recorded in the prefaces to the medicines in the
Materia Medica Pura, have anticipated the wants of homoeopathic physicians,
and saved them the trouble of instituting thousands of trials on themselves
by indicating for some medicines the dilution required for homoeopathic
practice; though since then I have been constrained by more recent experience
to carry the dilution of most of the medicines still lower, in order to attain
nearer to perfection in this incomparable healing art, as will be found in the
introduction to the second part of my book on Chronic Diseases.”
This was of course written before Hahnemann had definitely fixed on the
thirtieth dilution as the most suitable dose for all medicines and all diseases.
In the places indicated in the earlier editions of the Mat. Med. Pura he
endeavours to fix the proper dilution for many of the medicines which varies
from the crude substance to the thirtieth dilution.
To § 281:
This paragraph is followed in the first edition by the subjoined note:
"Let not the often enormous doses of medicines given in ordinary prac-
tice be urged against this truth. These medicines have seldom any homœo-
pathic relation to the disease (when that is the case the medicines are much
more efficacious in altering the health than when they are given on other
principles). Moreover they are always given either in combination with other
strong drugs, or other violently acting medicines are given besides or
between the doses of the first. Mixed up in this way each medicine can no
longer exercise its peculiar action, but is altered by the action of the second,
third, or fourth ingredient. The powers of the several medicines in a mixture
virtually neutralise one another to a great extent, so that they can often be
taken without producing any great effect. A single one of these very
powerful ingredients, if it be genuine and in full possession of its powers, if
given alone in the same dose would often cause death—a dreadful possibility,
which seems unconsciously and as if instinctively to have led physicians to
render the medicines of whose positive action they are ignorant less dangerous
by mixing a number of them together in one prescription. (This proceeding
seems to be vaguely indicated by their expression 'corrigentia.') In this
respect it may be almost termed a piece of good luck that in ordinary prac-
tice many medicines, especially the extracts, become almost absolutely
powerless by the mode of preparing them hitherto in vogue.”
To § 282:
There is nothing corresponding to this aphorism in the first edition.
To § 283:
The corresponding paragraph in the first edition has the following note:
"When I speak of the smallest possible dose in the homœopathic system
of medicine, I cannot set forth in tabular form the weights and measures of
the medicines, for the reason that the medicines differ so much in power. I
may only remark that in accordance with the degree of culture of their
minds people have very different standards of measurement for estimating
the great and the small; that to many the number of miles in the circum-
ference of our little earth seems to be something enormous, and that one
must not mention before them the quadrillion and quintillion earth-circum-
APPENDIX.
301
ferences that separate the innumerable suns in the universe from one another.
Persons of such limited intelligence are to be met with who can appreciate
nothing that they cannot grasp with their hands, and who estimate things
not according to their real inherent power, but by their coarse commercial
weight. The smallest weight of medicine they will hear of must be not
less than a grain; a tenth of a grain is for them an unconsidered trifle.
How can we suppose that these people, with their restricted standards of
measurement, can have a conception of the necessary division and diminution
of the medicinal doses for homeopathic purposes into smallest fractions
of grains? It were vain to expect it! Their limited intellect turns giddy at
numbers and divisions that do not come within the sphere of their practice,
are never even thought of by them. And yet it is only too true that in
the infinity of creation all that we weak mortals think large-very large-is
far from being large, and all that we imagine to be the smallest possible is
far from being so. Dissect, if you can, the component parts of the organs of
the infusorial animalcule, and you have hardly got down to the commence-
ment of the things which in creation are to be called small. And what
power resides in each of the countless organs which shorten and elongate the
body of the animalcule, and enable it to dart quickly about in fluids, besides
the unknown ways in which it contributes to the vital operations, the pur-
poses, the pleasures and the reproductive work of the minute organism!
What immeasurably great energy resides in these parts which our limited
faculties deem so small! Short-sighted man! how can you assign limits
to the marvellous, almost spiritual power of medicines? How with your
coarse mechanical scales can you determine the exact weight at which they
will cease to have any effect?
The doctrine of the divisibility of matter teaches us that we cannot make
a part so small that it shall cease to be something, and that it shall not
share all the properties of the whole. If, now, the smallest possible part
is powerful enough for the purpose for which you require it, would you
employ a greater quantity than you require, in order not to run counter to
traditional custom, and out of deference to the prejudices of those whose
standard of measurement is imperfect? And what is the use of larger doses
of medicines if the smallest possible quantities given on the homoeopathic
principle suffice for the cure of diseases in the most rapid and permanent
manner? And why should there be doubts about the powerfulness of
such small but still material doses of homoeopathic remedies, though their
calculated weight is extremely small, since some of the most powerful
counter-disease forces are quite imponderable, and yet have a great influence
on the health of man ? Who is ignorant of the medicinal powers of cold
and heat? Who does not know the power of electricity and galvanism?
Who will deny the heroic, often too great power of animal magnetism in
altering man's health? And what can surpass the counter-disease force
which the magnet, according to the testimony of many acute and honest
observers, has clearly manifested in a great number of diseases ?—the magnet,
whose imponderable matter constantly streaming out from it is imperceptible
to our senses, and yet has a great influence on the health of even the most
robust man, as any one can convince himself if he lets any part of his body
come in contact for one hour with the north pole of a large magnet, capable
302
APPENDIX.
of lifting ten or twelve times its own weight, as experiments of trustworthy
observers on healthy persons have taught us (v. Andry and Thouret, Beob. u.
Unters. üb. d. Gebr. d. Magn., Leipzig, 1785, p. 155)."
This is followed by the subjoined paragraphs which appear in the first
edition only:
<<
§ 248. The fact that usually not much more than a
single dose of a certain homœopathically selected medicine
overpowers and annihilates the morbid state for which it
is appropriate, and that every superfluously stronger dose
affects the body more than is necessary, explains the im-
portant, universally valid observation that dividing the
dose (giving it at several intervals) has a much more
powerful effect than the whole dose administered all at
once.
"C
§ 249. Eight drops of the tincture of any medicine in
one dose have four times less effect than these eight drops
given in doses of one drop at eight different times every
hour or every two hours.
(C
§ 250. If we employ dilution also (whereby the dose
gains a greater capacity for expansion) we may easily pro-
duce an excessive effect; but the effect will be slightly
different, whether the mixture with the diluting fluid is
merely superficial, or so uniform and intimate that the
smallest part of the fluid has become permeated with a
proportionate part of the dissolved medicine. The former
will be much less powerful than the latter.
Ҥ 251. Thus a single drop of the tincture intimately
mixed by vigorous shaking with a pound of water, and
two ounces of it given every two hours, will have four
times as much effect as eight drops given at once.
"§ 252. From the last-mentioned maxim of experience
-that the power of the fluid medicine is considerably in-
creased by its intimate mixture with a larger volume
of fluid—it follows undeniably, that in order to make the
dose of the homeopathic remedy as small as possible,
and as is requisite, it must be given in the smallest pos-
sible volume, so as to come in contact with as few nerves
as possible when it is ingested.¹
"1 Hence the uselessness and impropriety of drinking after taking the
dose which has been purposely made so small,"
APPENDIX.
303
To § 284:
Now "highest."
To § 287, first note:
And in the first part of the second edition of the Chronic Diseases.
To § 287, second note:
This allusion to the employment of dilutions beyond the thirtieth occurs first
in the fifth edition. In the earlier parts of the second edition of the Chronic
Diseases nothing is said about dilutions beyond the thirtieth, which is recom-
mended as the normal dose except when the medicine is repeated, when less
diluted preparations are advised. Thus after the thirtieth, then the twenty-
fourth, then the eighteenth, then the twelfth, sixth, and so on. But in the
preface to the third part of the Chronic Diseases, published in 1839, there is
an approving allusion to the fiftieth dilution. (See the concluding para-
graph of preface given above, p. 296.) In this passage Hahnemann departs
from the caution he gave in his letter to Dr. Schreter, of the 13th September,
1829 (see Brit. Journ. of Hom., v, p. 398): “I do not approve of your poten-
tizing the medicines higher (as, for instance, up to thirty-six and sixty).
There must be some limit to the thing; it cannot go on to infinity. By laying
it down as a rule that all homeopathic remedies be diluted and potentized up
to thirty, we have a uniform mode of procedure in the treatment of all
homœopathists, and when they describe a cure we can repeat it, as they and
we operate with the same tools."
k
""
Again, in 1832, when commenting on von Korsakoff's new-fangled mode of
attenuating drugs, Hahnemann says, "I must say that these procedures
chiefly seem to show how high one can go with the potentized attenuation of
medicines without their action on the human health becoming nil. For this
these experiments are of inestimable value; but, for the homœopathic treat-
ment of patients, it is expedient in the preparation of all kinds of medicines
to remain stationary at the decillionfold attenuation and potency, in order
that homoeopathic practitioners may be able to promise themselves uniform
results in their cures (Arch., xi, 2, 99).
To § 288, note:
This note forms part of the preface by Hahnemann to Bönninghausen's
Rep. d. Antipsor. Arzn. The first part of the preface is given in the note
to § 246.
To § 292:
The first edition concludes with a note relative to the employment of other
than homoeopathic remedies:
"Besides the homeopathic method, the rational physician will very seldom
have occasion to employ that revolutionary plan of evacuations upwards and
downwards, except when quite indigestible or foreign or hurtful substances
have been taken into the stomach or bowels. Sometimes the employment of
some undynamic remedies is needful. Such are fatty matters, which
mechanically or physically loosen the connection and compactness of the
fibres; tannin, which solidifies the living fibres almost as much as it does the
dead fibres; charcoal, which diminishes the bad smell of unhealthy parts in
the living body, just as it destroys that of dead things; chalk, alkalies,
soap and sulphur, which can chemically decompose, neutralise and render
innocuous the corrosive acids and metallic salts in or on the human body;
304
APPENDIX.
acids and alkalies which are able to dissolve different kinds of urinary calculi
in the bladder; the physically destructive red-hot iron, chemical escharotics
of various sorts, &c. The reducing but rarely rationally employable blood-
letting, leeches, &c., need not be dwelt upon here."
To § 292, note:
This note terminates here in the three previous editions.
To § 293:
The last two aphorisms are also given in the third edition, and this con-
stitutes the chief and, with the exception of the double § 108 and § 167,
almost the only difference between it and the second edition.
To § 293, note:
This note ends here in the fourth edition.
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