The Chronic
Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homœopathic Cure.
by Dr Samuel Hahnemann
Presented By Médi-T
(Page 130 … 139)
If a homœopathic physician,
scrupulous at the wrong occasion, should ask me bow he might fill up
the many days after giving a dose, so that it may continue its action
undisturbed during the above-mentioned long time, and so satisfy,
without injuring, the patient who every day [*]
asks for his medicine, I reply with two words, that he should be given
every day at the usual time for medicine a dose of sugar of milk,
about three grains, which shall be marked as usual with continuous
numbers. [**] I remark
here, that I consider the sugar of milk thus used as an invaluable
gift of God. [***]—–
[*]
No old established custom among the people, be it ever so
hurtful, can be suddenly changed. So also the homœopathic physician
cannot avoid allowing a new chronic patient to take at least one
little powder a day; the difference between this and the many
medicinal doses of allopaths is still very great. During this daily
taking of a powder, following the numbers, it will be a great
benefit to the poor patient who is often intimidated by slanderers
of the better medical art, if he does not know whether there is a
dose of medicine in every powder, nor again, in which one of them?
If he knew the latter, and should know, that to-day’s number
contains the medicine of which he expects so much, his fancy would
often play him an evil trick, and he would imagine that he feels
sensations and changes in his body, which do not exist; he would
note imaginary symptoms and live in a continual inquietude of mind;
but if he daily takes a dose, and daily notices no evil assault on
his health, he becomes more equable in disposition (being taught by
experience), expects no ill effects, and will then quietly note the
changes in his state which are actually present, and therefore can
only report the truth to his physician. On this account it is best
that he should daily take his powder, without knowing whether there
is medicine in all or in a certain powder; thus he will not expect
more from to-day’s powder than from yesterday’s or that of the day
before.[**]
Chronic patients who firmly trust in the honesty and skill of their
physician will be satisfied, without any after thoughts, to receive
such a dose of sugar of milk every two, four or seven days,
according to the disposition of each, and nevertheless retain a firm
confidence, as, indeed, is only just and reasonable.[***]
There were some anxious purists, who were afraid that even the pure
sugar of milk, either in itself or changed by long trituration,
might have medicinal effects. But this is a vain, utterly unfounded
fear, as I have determined by very exact experiments. We may use the
crude, pure sugar of milk as a food, and partake of considerable
quantities of it, without any change in the health, and so also the
triturated sugar. But to destroy at the same time the fear to which
utterance has been given by some hypochondriacs, that through a long
trituration of the sugar of milk alone, or in the potentizing of
medicines, something might rub off from the porcelain mortar
(silica), which being potentized by this same trituration would be
bound to become strongly acting Silicea(1), I took a new porcelain
triturating bowl in which the glazing had been rubbed off, with a
new porcelain pestle, and had one hundred grains of pure sugar of
milk, divided into portions of thirty-three grains, triturated
eighteen times for six minutes at a time and as frequently scraped
for four minutes with a porcelain spatula, in order to develop by
this three hours strong trituration a medicinal power either of the
sugar of milk or of the silica or of both; but my preparation
remained as indifferent and unmedicinal as the crude, merely
nutritive sugar of milk, of which I convinced myself by experiments
on very sensitive persons.We cannot flatter ourselves
that the antipsoric medicine given was rightly selected, or that it
will forward the cure of a chronic disease, if it quickly and entirely
destroys as if by a stroke of magic the most troublesome symptoms,
old, great, continuous pains, tonic or clonic spasms, etc., so that
the patient almost immediately after taking the medicine, fancies
himself as much freed from sufferings as if he were already restored,
and as if in heaven. This deceptive effect shows that the medicine
here acts enantiopathically as an opposite or palliative, and that in
the days following we cannot expect anything from this remedy but an
aggravation of the original disease. As soon then as this deceptive
improvement within a few days begins again to turn to aggravation, it
is high time to give either the antidote to this medicine, or, when
this cannot be had, a medicine which is homœopathically more
appropriate. Very rarely will such an enantiopathic remedy do any good
in the future. If the medicine which is thus antipathic at once in the
beginning, i.e., which seemed so
to alleviate, is inclined to reciprocal action, it is possible that
when the aggravation from this dose takes place, a second dose of the
same remedy may produce the contrary, and thus bring about a lasting
improvement, as I have at least perceived in ignatia.In such cases we may also
successfully use, for the ailments following after a few days from
such an antipathic remedy, one of the remaining medicines from the
considerable store laid down in Materia
Medica Pura, in the “Archiv
der homœopathischen Heilkunst” or in the “Annalen.”
This may be done for a few days until the Psora-disease returns to its
customary routine course, when a homœopathically selected antipsoric
medicine is to be given to continue the Cure.Among the mishaps which
disturb the treatment only in a temporary way, I enumerate:
overloading the stomach (this may be remedied by hunger, i.e.,
by only taking a little thin soup instead of the meal, and a little
coffee); disorder of the stomach from fat meat, especially from eating
pork (to be cured by fasting and pulsatilla);
a disorder of the stomach which causes rising from the stomach after
eating and especially nausea and inclination to vomit (by highly
potentized antimonium crudum);
taking cold in the stomach by eating fruit (by smelling of arsenicum);
troubles from spirituous liquors (nux vomica);
disorder of the stomach with gastric fever, chilliness and cold (bryonia
alba); fright (when the medicine can be given at once, and
especially when the fright causes timidity, by poppy-juice
(opium); but if aid can only be
rendered later, or when vexation is joined with the fright, by aconite;
but if sadness is caused by the fright, ignatia
seeds); vexation which causes anger, violence, heat,
irritation, by chamomilla, (but if
beside the vexation there is chilliness and coldness of the body, by bryonia);
vexation with indignation, deep internal mortification (attended with
throwing away what was held in the hand, by staphisagria);
indignation with silent internal mortification (by colocynthis);
unsuccessful. love with quiet grief (by ignatia);
unhappy love with jealousy (by hyoscyamus);
a severe cold (next to keeping the house or the bed) by nux
vomica; when diarrhœa resulted, by dulcamara;
or if followed by pains, coffea cruda;
or if followed by fever and heat, by aconite,
a cold which is followed by suffocative fits, (by ipecacuanha);
colds followed by pains and an inclination to sleep, (by coffea
cruda); cold with consequent coryza and loss of the sense
of smell and of taste, (by pulsatilla);
overlifting or strains (sometimes by arnica,
but most certainly by rhus toxicodendron);
contusions and wounds inflicted by blunt instruments, (by arnica);
burning of the skin (by compresses of water mixed with a dilution of
highly potentized arsenicum, or
uninterrupted application for hours of alcohol heated by means of very
hot water); weakness from loss of fluids and blood, (by china);
homesickness with redness of the cheeks, (by capsicum).But during the treatment of
chronic diseases by antipsoric remedies we often need the other
non-antipsoric store of medicines in cases where epidemic diseases or
intermediate diseases (morbi intercurrentes)
arising usually from meteoric and telluric causes attack our chronic
patients, and so not only temporarily disturb the treatment, but even interrupt
it for a longer time. Here the other homœopathic remedies will have
to be used, wherefore I shall not enter upon this here, except to say
that the antipsoric treatment will have for the time to be totally
discontinued, so long as the, treatment of the epidemic disease which
has also seized our (chronic) patient may last, even if a few weeks in
the worst cases may thus be lost. But here also, if the disease is not
too severe, the above mentioned method of applying the medicine by
smelling a moistened pellet is often sufficient to help, and the cure
of the acute disease may thus he extraordinarily shortened.The intelligent homœopathic
physician will soon note the point of time when his remedies have
completed the cure of the epidemic intermediate disease [*]
and when the peculiar course of the chronic (psoric) malady
is continued.—–
[*]
Usually these epidemic intermediate diseases appear in the form of a
fever (if they are not the permanent miasms, small-pox, measles,
dysentery, whooping cough, etc.). There are fevers of various kinds,
a continuous acute fever, or a slow remittent, or an intermittent
fever. Intermittent fevers appear almost every year in a somewhat
changed form. Since I have learned to cure chronic diseases and
maladies by a homœopathic extirpation of their psoric source, I
have found the epidemically current intermittent fevers almost every
year different in their character and in their symptoms, and they
therefore require almost every year a different medicine for their
specific cure. one year they require arsenicum, another belladonna,
another antimonium crudum, or spigelia, aconite, with ipecacuanha,
alternating with nux vomica, sal ammoniacum, natrum muriaticum,
opium, cina, alone or in alternation with capsicum, or capsicum
alone, menyanthes trifoliata, calcarea carbonica, pulsatilla, one of
the two carbos, arnica, alone or in alternation with ipecacuanha,
and with these they were cured in a few days. I would not, indeed,
except any one of the non-antipsoric medicines, if they are only
homœopathic to the whole complex of the symptoms of the prevailing
fever, in its attack as well as in its apyrexia (see von
Bœnninghausen, Versuch e. hom. Therapie d.
Wechselfiebers, 1833, Muenster), but I would almost always except
cinchona; for this can only suppress its
type in many large doses in a concentrated form (as
quinine), and then it changes it into a cachexy of quinine, which it
is difficult to cure. (China is
only appropriate to the endemic
intermittent fever in marshy regions, and even this can only be
rightly cured by it in connection with antipsoric remedies.) Even at
the beginning of the treatment of an epidemic
intermittent fever, the homœopathic physician is most safe in
giving every time an attenuated dose of sulphur or in appropriate
cases, hepar sulphuris in a fine little pellet or by means of
smelling, and in waiting its effects for a few days, until the
improvement resulting from it ceases, and then only he will give, in
one or two attenuated doses, the non-antipsoric medicine which has
been found homœopathically appropriate to the epidemy of this year.
These doses should however only be given at the end of an attack. With
all patients in intermittent fever, psora is essentially involved in
every epidemy, therefore an attenuated dose of sulphur,
or of hepar sulphuris is necessary at the beginning of every
treatment of epidemic intermittent fever, and makes the restoration
of the patient more sure and easy.The symptoms of the original
chronic disease will, however, always be found somewhat varied after
the cure of such a prevailing intermediate disease. Also another part
of the body will be found suffering, so that the homœopathic
physician will choose his antipsoric remedy according to the totality
of the remaining symptoms, and not simply give the one he intended to
give before the intermediate disease appeared.When the physician is called
to treat such a prevalent disease in a patient whom he had not before
attended as a chronic patient he will not unfrequently find,
especially if the fever was considerable, that after overcoming it by
the remedies which had been homœopathically specific with other
patients of this kind, the full restoration to health does not follow
even with good diet and mode of living: but incidents of another kind
will show themselves (usually, called after-pains or secondary
diseases) and these will gradually be aggravated and threaten to
become chronic. Here the homœopathic physician will nearly always
have to meet a psora which is developing into a chronic disease, and
this will have to be cured according to the principles here laid down.Here is a fitting opportunity
to note that the great epidemic diseases: smallpox, measles, purple
rash, scarlet fever, whooping cough, fall dysentery and typhoid, when
they complete their course especially without a judicious homœopathic
treatment, leave the organism so shaken and irritated, that with many
who seem restored, the psora which was before slumbering and latent
now awakes quickly, either into itch-like eruptions [*]
or into other chronic disorders, which then reach a high degree in a
short time, if they are not treated properly in an antipsoric manner.
This is due to the great exhaustion of the organism which still
prevails. The allopathic physician, when such a patient, as is
frequently the case, dies after all his unsuitable treatment, declares
that he has died from the sequelæ,
of whooping cough, measles, etc.These sequelæ
are, however, the innumerable chronic diseases in numberless forms of
developed psora which have hitherto been unknown as to their origin
and consequently remained uncured.Epidemic and sporadic fevers,
therefore, as well as the miasmatic acute diseases, if they do not
soon terminate and pass directly over into good health, (even when the
epidemic and acute miasmatic part has found a homœopathic specific
which has been rightly used against them), often need an antipsoric
assistance, which I have usually found in sulphur, if the patient had
not used shortly before a medicine containing sulphur, in which case
another antipsoric suitable to this particular case will have to be
used.Endemic diseases, with their
striking pertinacity, depend almost wholly on a psoric complication,
or on psora modified by the peculiarity of the nature of the locality
(and the especial mode of life of the inhabitants), so that, e.g.,
in intermittent fever originating in a marshy region, the patients,
even after removal into a dry region, often remain uncured despite of
all their use of china, unless the antipsoric treatment is especially
used. The exhalation from swamps seems to be one of the strongest
physical causes of the development of the psora latent within with so
many persons [**] and
this most of all in hot countries. Without an almost regular use of
the best antipsoric method of cure, we shall never succeed in removing
the murderous qualities of humid climates and changing them into
passably healthy, habitable regions. Man may accustom himself to the
extreme degrees of atmospheric heat, as well as to the most violent
cold, and can live joyous and healthy in both extremes, Why should he
not be able to accustom himself to marshy regions just as well as to
the driest mountain regions, if there were not a hitherto undiscovered
and unconquered enemy of vigorous life and lasting health, lying in
ambush in marshy regions, i.e., psora? Wherever psora lies latent
within (and how frequently is this the case?) it is developed into
chronic diseases of every kind, especially those in which the liver is
most affected, through stagnant water and the gases that emanate from
damp soil and from swamps; and this is effected more
surely, yea, unavoidably
by these causes than by any other physical power injurious to health.—–
[*]
When such an eruption appears in any quantity, it is called by
writers scabies spontanea
(spontaneous itch) – a mere chimera and nonentity, for as far as
history goes, no itch has arisen except from infection, and it
cannot now arise again of itself without infection with the miasma
of itch. But this phenomenon after acute fever is nothing else than
the secondary eruption so often mentioned above springing from the
slumbering and latent psora remaining within after the repression
(or more rarely the gradual disappearance) from the skin of the
original eruption of itch. This eruption frequently leaves the skin
of itself and it has never been proved that it infected any other
person with the itch.[**]
Presumably these exhalations possess a quality which as it were
paralyzes the vital force of the organism (which in an ordinary
state of health is able to keep down the internal psora which always
endeavors to manifest itself) and thus predisposes to putrid and
nervous fevers.The latest symptoms that have
been added to a chronic disease which has been left to itself (and
thus has not been aggravated by medical mismanagement) are always the
first to yield in an antipsoric treatment; but the oldest ailments and
those which have been most constant and unchanged, among which are the
constant local ailments, are the last to give way; and this is only
effected, when all the remaining disorders have disappeared and the
health has been in all other respects almost totally restored. In the
general maladies which come in repeated attacks, e.
g. the periodic kinds of hysteria, and different kinds of
epilepsy, etc., the attacks may quickly be made to cease by a suitable
antipsoric; but to make this cessation reliable and lasting, the whole
indwelling psora must be completely cured.The frequent request of a
patient to have one symptom, which above others is troublesome to him,
removed first of all, is impracticable, but the ignorant patient
should be excused for his request.In the daily written report
during the use of an antipsoric medicine, the patient who lives at
a distance should underscore once, for the information of
the physician, those incident symptoms during the day, which after a
considerable time or a long time he has now felt again for the first
time; but those which he never had before and which he first felt on
that day, he should underscore twice.
The former symptoms indicate that the antipsoric has taken hold of the
root of the evil, and will do much for its thorough cure, but the
latter, if they appear more frequently and more strongly, give the
physician a hint that the antipsoric was not selected quite
homœopathically, and should be interrupted in time and replaced by a
more appropriate one.When the treatment is about
half completed, the diminished disease commences to return into the
state of a latent psora; the symptoms grow weaker and weaker, and at
last the attentive physician will only find traces of it; but he must
follow these to their complete disappearance, for the smallest remnant
retains a germ for a renewal of the old ailment. [*]
If the physician should here give up the treatment and suppose what
the common man (and also the higher class of the non-medical public)
is apt to say: “It will now likely get right of itself,”
a great mistake would be made; for in time there would develop,
(especially when any important untoward events take place), out of
this little remnant of this only diminished psora, a new chronic
disease which gradually would increase unavoidably, according to the
nature of diseases springing from unextinguished chronic miasms as
shown above.The cito,
tuto et jucunde (quickly, safely and pleasantly) of Celsus,
the patient may reasonably ask from his physician, and from the
homœopath he can rightly expect this in acute diseases springing from
occasional causes, as well as in the well-defined intermediate
diseases prevalent at times (the so-called intercurrent diseases).But with especial regard to
the “Cito” (quickly), i.e.,
the hastening of the cure, the nature of the case forbids it, at least
in inveterate chronic ailments. [**]The cure of great chronic
diseases of ten, twenty, thirty and more years’ standing (if
they have not been mismanaged by an excess of allopathic treatments,
or indeed, as is often the case, mismanaged into incurableness)
may be said to be quickly annihilated if this is done in one or two
years. If with younger, robust persons this takes place in one-half
the time, then on the other hand in advanced age, even with the best
treatment on the part of the physician and the most punctual
observance of rules on the part of the patient and his attendants,
considerable time must be added to the usual period of the cure. It
will also be found intelligible that such a long-continued (psoric)
chronic disease, the original miasm of which has had so much time and
opportunity in a long life to insert its parasitical roots as it were,
into all the joints of the tender edifice of life, is at last so
intimately interwoven with the organism that even with the most
appropriate medical treatment, careful mode of life and observance of
rules on the part of the patient, great patience and sufficient time
will be required to destroy this many armed polypus in all its parts,
while sparing the independence of the organism and its powers.—–
[*]
So from the water-polypus which has several of its branches
lopped off in time new branches will shoot forth.[**]
Only an ordinary ignorant practitioner can lightly promise to cure a
severe inveterate disease in four to six weeks. He need not, indeed,
keep his promise! What does he risk, if as a matter of course, his
treatment only aggravates the disease? Can he lose anything? Any
honor? No; for his colleagues, who are like him, do no better. Can
he lose in self-respect? Should he yet have any to lose?The strength of a patient
under an antipsoric treatment, even if it should be continued ever so
long, ought continually to increase from the very commencement of the
correct treatment even to the restoration of health and of the normal
state. The strength increases during the whole of the cure without the
use of the so-called tonics, and the patients joyously rise up again
of themselves in proportion as their life is delivered from its
corroding enemy. [*]The best time for taking a
dose of antipsoric medicine seems to be, not an hour before going to
bed but, rather, early in the morning while fasting. The medicine in
the numbered paper [**]
(as also all that succeed) if it is desired that it should act but
feebly, should be taken dry and allowed to dissolve on the tongue, or
be moistened with two or three drops of water on a spoon, and by
itself, without in either case drinking anything after it or eating
anything within half an hour or a whole hour. [***]After taking the medicine the
patient should keep perfectly quiet at least a full hour, but without
going to sleep (sleep delays the beginning of the action of the
medicine). He must avoid during this hour, as indeed throughout the
treatment, all disagreeable excitement, nor should he strain his mind
immediately after taking the dose, in any way, either by reading or
computing, by writing, or by conversations requiring meditation.—–
[*]
It is inconceivable how allopathic physicians could think of curing
chronic diseases through a continuance of exhausting and
debilitating treatments, without being restrained by their lack of
success from repeating continually their perverse treatment. The amara
which they give between, together with the quinine, without being
able to supply the strength lost, only add new evils.[**]
Numbering the powders continuously has the convenience that the
physician when the patients render their daily report (especially
those living at a distance) putting first the date and the number of
the powder taken that day, can recognize the day when the patient
took his medicine, and can judge of the progress of its action
according to the report of the following day.[***]
If the medicine is to act more strongly it must be stirred in a
little more water until dissolved before taking it, and in still
more water if it is to act still more strongly, and the physician
should order the solution taken a portion at a time. If he orders
the solution taken in one or three days it must be stirred up not
only the first time, but also the other two times, by which every
part thus stirred acquires another somewhat higher degree of
potency, and so is received more willingly by the vital force. To
direct the use of the same solution for a greater number of days is
not advisable, as the water, kept longer, would begin to putrefy.
How a dose for smelling may be adapted to all degrees of strength, I
have mentioned above.The dose of antipsoric
medicine must not be taken by females shortly before their menses are
expected, nor during their flow; but the dose can be given, if
necessary, four days, i.e., about
ninety-six hours after the menses have set in. But in case the menses
previously have been premature or too profuse, or two long-lasting, it
is often necessary to give on this fourth day a small dose of nux
vomica (one very small pellet, moistened with a high
dynamization) to be smelled, and then, on the fourth or sixth day
following, the antipsoric. But if the female is very sensitive and
nervous, she ought, until she comes near her full restoration, to
smell such a pellet once about every time seventy-two hours after the
beginning of her menses, notwithstanding her continued antipsoric
treatment. [*]Pregnancy in all its stages
offers so little obstruction to the antipsoric treatment, that this
treatment is often most necessary and useful in that condition. [**]
Most necessary because the chronic
ailments then are more developed. In this state of woman, which is
quite a natural one, the symptoms of the internal psora are often
manifested most plainly [***] on
account of the increased sensitiveness of the female body and spirit
while in this state; the antipsoric medicine therefore acts more
definitely and perceptibly during pregnancy, which gives the hint to
the physician to make the doses in these as small and in as highly
potentized attenuations as possible, and to make his selections in the
most homœopathic manner.—–
[*]
In such a morbid state of the menses nothing can be done in the cure
of chronic diseases without the intermediate use of Nux vomica,
which here specially reduces to order the disharmony arising in the
functions of the nerves from so disorderly a flow of the menses, and
so quiets this excessive sensitiveness and irritability, which put
an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the curative action of the
antipsoric remedies.[**]
In what more certain way could, e.g.,
the return of miscarriage, which is almost exclusively due to psora,
be prevented, and, indeed, be lastingly prevented, than through a
judicious antipsoric treatment before or at least during Pregnancy?
In what more reliable way could the states of the womb, which are
not infrequently dangerous, and sometimes fatal even in a proper
presentation of the fœtus and in a natural labor, be removed in
advance than by a timely antipsoric treatment during pregnancy? Even
the improper presentation of the child has, if not always, still
very often its only cause in the psoric sickness of the mother, and
the hydrocephalus and other bodily defects of the child have surely
this cause! Only the antipsoric treatment of the sickly wife if not
before, at least during pregnancy, can remove in advance the
mother’s inability for suckling, as also in suckling prevent the
frequent sore breasts, the soreness of the nipples, the frequent
inclination to erysipelatous inflammations of the breasts and their
abscesses, as well the hæmorrhages of the uterus during suckling.[***]
Nevertheless, the entire opposite frequently takes place, so that
the wife who before pregnancy was always sickly, and uninterruptedly
complaining, feels in unusual good health during every pregnancy and
only during this state. And with such cases this time of pregnancy
may very well be made use of for antipsoric treatment, which in such
a case is directed against the symptoms of the morbid state before
pregnancy, so far as this can be remembered.Sucklings never receive
medicine; the mother or wet-nurse receives the remedy instead, and
through their milk it acts on the child very quickly, mildly and
beneficially.The corporeal nature (called
the life-preserving principle or vital force) when left to itself,
since it is without reason, cannot provide anything better than
palliatives in chronic diseases and in the acute diseases springing
thence which cause sudden danger to life, owing to the indwelling
psora. These are the causes of the more frequent secretions and
excretions of various kinds taking place of themselves now and then in
chronic (psoric) diseases, as e.g.,
diarrhœas, vomiting, perspiration, suppurations, hæmorrhages, etc.
All these are attended with only temporary alleviations of the chronic
original malady, which owing to the losses of humors and of strength
thereby only becomes more and more aggravated.Allopathy has, so far, not
been able to do any more than this toward a genuine cure of the
chronic diseases; it could only imitate the unreason in corporeal
nature in its palliatives (usually without an equal alleviation and
with a greater sacrifice of strength). It caused therefore, more than
the other, a hastening of the general ruin, without being able to
contribute anything to the extinction of the original malady. To this
class belong all the many, indescribable purgatives, the so-called
dissolvents, the venesection, cupping, the applying of leeches now so
insanely frequent, the sudorifics, the artificial sores, setons,
fontanelles, exutories, etc.God be praised, the homœopathic
physician who is acquainted with the means of a radical cure, and who
thus through the anti-psoric treatment can destroy the chronic disease
itself, has so little need of the above mentioned applications, which
only hasten dissolution, that he has on the contrary to use all care
that the patient may not secretly use some of these appliances,
following the old routine, diffused over the whole earth by allopathy.
He can never yield to the request of the patient, e.g.,
that he has become accustomed to being bled so and so many times a
year, or to be cupped, or to use purgatives or warm baths, and that he
therefore needs them. Such things cannot be permitted.
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2006