The Chronic
Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homœopathic Cure.
by Dr Samuel HahnemannTranslated from the second
enlarged German edition of 1835, by Prof. Louis H. Tafel.
With annotations by Richard Hughes, M. D.
Edited by Pemberton Dudley, M. D.
Translator’s
preface.
The
translation here submitted to the public is the second translation of
this work into English, it having before this been rendered by Dr.
Charles J. Hempel and published by Wm. Radde in the years 1845-6. When
it was proposed to reprint this translation, there was a strong
protest made against the old version on the ground of its being to
some degree inexact, and on account of its omitting not only the
initials of the provers but besides this, also a great number of
symptoms. These complaints have been proved well founded, especially
with respect to the latter part of the work. We have taken a hundred
symptoms at random here and there and compared them with the original,
with the following results : in Alumina 555-655 we found only the
omission of a part of symptom 556 and a partial omission and joining
together of symptoms 617 and 618. So also in Graphites there is no
omission except 53 (a repetition) in the first hundred, nor any other
until we reach 200, 201 and 202 which are omitted. In the first
hundred of Nitri acidum, however, we find 13 omissions, namely 6, 30,
32, 37, 38, 40, 43, 45, 59, 64, 65, 67 and 69. So also in Zincum from
1135 to 1235 we find 10 omissions, i. e.,
1136, 1138, 1152, 1170, 1187, 1197, 1207, 1220, 1222, 1225 and
1235 ; while 1153, 1195 and 1295 have one-half of their substance
omitted. Between 1236 and 1335 there are 23 omissions, namely 1245,
1269, 1278, 1288, 1290, 1292, 1293, 1294, 1297, 1298, 1299, 1302,
1303, 1305, 1306, 1308, 1313, 1316, 1320, 1324, 1331, 1332, 1335,
while one-half of the substance of symptoms 1287, 1296, 1312, 1315 and
1325 is omitted ; showing the omission in this extreme case of
over one-fourth. The omissions are rather impartially distributed,
about one-third of the above omissions being symptoms of Hahnemann,
fully one-third, those due to Nenning and the other third, distributed
impartially among the various other provers.
These
omissions made a new translation necessary, which was accordingly made
independent of that of Dr. Hempel, though the earlier translation was
consulted especially where there was any obscurity or ambiguity in the
original. There is no question but that Hempel is right in what he
says of the involved phraseology and the lengthy periods of
Hahnemann ; still we did not think it best to follow his mode of
rendering, which according to his preface consists in “mastering
the sense of a period, and then embodying it in a free manner in the
foreign tongue”. We have preferred to follow in this respect the
example set by Dr. Dudgeon in his admirable translation of the Materia
Medica Pura (London, 1880) ; he has faithfully
rendered not only the ideas but also the expressions of Hahnemann. It
is only by thus closely following the author, that we shall be sure to
reproduce the ideas of the author and, indeed, in their own setting
and thus in their native vigor and in the author’s own original style.
We have accordingly preserved the long periods of Hahnemann and his
own precise, if sometimes redundant, phraseology ; though, of
course it was necessary to invert the periods and to arrange the
phrases into the English order.
This
applies chiefly to the first theoretic part of the work, and in this
part we would especially acknowledge the able assistance of Dr.
Pemberton Dudley, who has taken care that too close a clinging to the
German original might be avoided.We have generally endeavored
to translate the same German word by the same English word, except
where words have several meanings. A few particulars may here be
mentioned. The frequently recurring adjective drueckend,
which by Dr. Hempel is usually rendered with “aching” and by
Dr. Dudgeon with “pressive” or with “aching”, we
have uniformly rendered with pressive ; while we use
“ache” to translate the German weh.
There are a few words which require a varied translation according to
the context : Brust is used
both for “chest” and for “the female breast”, so
that e. g. die rechte Brust may
mean either “the right breast” or “the right side of
the chest” ; Hals means
either “throat” or “neck” ; Schenkel
may mean either “the thigh”, “the leg” or
“the whole lower limb”, though for these parts usually the
more specific terms Oberschenkel,
Unterschenkel and Bein
are used ; Gesicht means
either “face” or “sight”. We have taken care to
translate these terms according to the context in every case, though
the learned reader will remember that in some of these cases there is
a little ambiguity. One of the German terms which seems to have no
good English equivalent is Eingenommen
with respect to the head. It means literally “occupied” and
describes the sensation produced in the head by a cold, where the
parts are as it were benumbed and incapacitated from acting freely.
Dr. Hempel has usually described this state of the head by
“obtusion”, Dr. Dudgeon usually by “confusion” or
“muddled feeling”. We have usually rendered it with
“benumbed feeling”, though as none of these terms was quite
satisfactory, we have also sometimes used “muddled feeling”
or “obtuseness”.As was done in the Materia
Medica Pura published in London, so we have also in this
work printed the names of old school authorities cited with small
capitals, while the names of other provers are in italics, so that it
may be seen at a glance, whether the symptom was produced by an
intentional proving (or from clinical experience), or whether it was
the result of accidental poisoning or an overdose by an observer of
the old school.
The
Antipsoric Medicines have been annotated by Dr. Richard Hughes, of
Bath, England, who in the course of his researches found occasion to
rectify the numbers referring to the pages, etc. of a number of the
citations. These at his suggestion were at first merely entered in the
translation instead of the figures given by Hahnemann ; but on
second thought, it seemed more useful to give them among the other
notes given by Dr. Hughes, as showing his diligence and the care given
by Dr. Hughes, as showing his diligence and the care given by him to
these particulars.While there seemed to be no
necessity for an index to the Antipsoric Medicines, since this is
furnished in the various repertories, especially in that of Bœnninghausen,
it was thought useful to have an index to the first or theoretical
part, and this was accordingly prepared by the translator.
L. H. TAFEL.
* * * * *
Prefatory
note to Materia Medica section.I have been desired, by the
publishers of this new translation of Hahnemann’s Chronic
Diseases, to exercise a certain editorial superintendence
over that what may be called the Materia Medica section of the work. I
shall do this mainly by notes appended to each pathogenesis ; but
in the present place I desire to state what is known in a general way
about the symptom-lists in question, [*]
and what I propose to do for them as they severally appear in the
following pages.
[*]
The information we have on this subject is fully given at page 31 of
the latter editions of my Pharmacodynamics.
My present statement is based upon what is written here.
I.
In 1821 Hahnemann had been compelled to leave Leipsic, and, in
difficulty where to find a place in which he could practice in
freedom, had been offered an asylum in the little country town of Cœthen.
Thither he repaired, and there he remained till his removal to Paris
in 1835. He now ceased to attend acute disease, save in the family of
his patron, the reigning Duke. But his fame brought him for
consultation chronic suffers from all parts ; and the varied,
shifting, and obstinate morbid stated under which so many men and
women labour were pressed closely upon his attention. The result was
the theory of chronic disease which (in its latest shape) will be
found in these pages, and which traces so many of its forms to a
“psoric” origin. To meet the manifold disorders thus induced
it seemed to him that a new set of remedies were required.
Accordingly, of the three volumes of the first edition of the present
work published in 1828, the two latter contained what seem to be
pathogeneses of fifteen medicines hitherto strange to his Materia
Medica Pura, and in some cases to any Materia Medica
whatever. These medicines were :Ammonium carbonicum,
Baryta carbonica,
Calcarea carbonica,
Graphites,
Iodium,
Lycopodium,
Magnesia carbonica,
Magnesia muriatica,
Natrum carbonicum,
Nitri acidum,
Petroleum,
Phosphorus,
Sepia,
Silicea,
Zincum.The pathogeneses of the
foregoing (I assume them to be such from the analogy of the
corresponding symptom-lists of the Materia
Medica Pura ; but they are not avowedly so) appear
without a word of explanation as to how the symptoms were obtained,
and without acknowledgement (as in the previous work) of
fellow-observers. The absence of any co-operation on the part of
others is further to be inferred from what we are told of the first
announcement of the work. After six years of solitude at Cœthen,
Hahnemann “summoned thither his two oldest and most esteemed
disciples, Drs. Stapf and Gross, and communicated to them his theory
of the origin of chronic disease, and his
discovery of a completely new series of medicaments for their cure“.
So writes Dr. Dudgeon. [*]
This was in 1827. That he should now first reveal these new remedies,
and in the following year should publish copious lists of their
pathogenetic effects confirms the inference to be drawn from his
position and from his silence as to fellow-observers. He was himself
between seventy and eighty years old, and it is hardly likely that he
did anything at this time in the way of proving on his own person. We
are compelled to the conclusion that he drew these symptoms mainly -if
not entirely- from the sufferers from chronic disease who flocked to
his retreat to avail themselves of his treatment.
[*]
Lectures on Homœopathy, p. xxx.
The prefatory notices to the
several medicines still further substantiate this view, and throw some
light on the doses with which the symptoms were obtained. He
recommends all the medicines to be given in the dilutions from the
18th to the 30th (save Magnesia muriatica and Natrum carbonicum, of
which he advises the 6th and 12th respectively) ; and repeatedly
makes some such remark as this : “For a long time past I
have given the 6th, 9th and 12th potencies, but found their effects
too violent”. Occasionally, too, he must have used the second and
third triturations ; as he speaks of having begun by giving a
“small portion of a grain” of these, but, as this was an
indefinite quantity, having subsequently dissolved and attenuated
them. He mentions cases, moreover, in which he treated itch with Carbo
vegetabilis and Sepia of the latter strength.We may conclude, therefore,
that it is these “violent effects” of the attenuations from
the 2nd to the 12th, experienced by the sufferers from chronic disease
who took them, which make up the bulk -if not the whole- of the
symptoms of the first issue of the Chronic
Diseases.In 1830 there appeared a
third volume (making the fourth of the first edition) of
symptom-lists, appended to two more new medicines -Kali carbonicum and
Natrum muriaticum, and to five others- Carbo animalis and vegetabilis,
Causticum, Conium and Sulphur -which had already found place in the Materia
Medica Pura. Of the new ones we are told that two persons
co-operated in obtaining the pathogenesis of Kali carbonicum and three
in that of Natrum muriaticum- in the case of the latter the symptoms
being obtained from healthy persons taking globules saturated with the
30th dilution. [*] Fresh
associates are also acknowledged with regard to Conium. A new
character is thus imprinted on the symptoms standing under the names
of the several medicines, and it continues with respect to those
contained in the second edition of the Chronic Diseases, published
1835-9, which is that here translated. Besides the twenty-two
medicines of the first edition it contains twenty-five others, of
which thirteen are new, and twelve had already appeared in the Materia
Medica Pura.
[*]
A specimen of these provings may be seen in the Monthly
Hom. Review
for 1889, p. 517.The new ones are :
Agaricus,
Alumina,
Ammonium muriaticum,
Anacardium,
Clematis,
Cuprum,
Euphorbium,
Mezereum,
Antimonium crudum,
Borax,
Nitrum,
Platina,
Sulphuris acidum.The old ones are :
Arsenicum,
Aurum,
Colocynth,
Digitalis,
Dulcamara,
Guaiacum,
Hepar sulphuris,
Manganum,
Muriatis acidum,
Phosphori acidum,
Sarsaparilla,
Stannum.Those pathogeneses which had
already seen the light have (generally) large additions ; for all
Hahnemann acknowledges contributions from fellow-observers, and for
many cites symptoms from the extant literature of his day. The total
number of these last is 1742.There are, it is evident,
fresh features in the pathogeneses of this second edition ; and
there are more than appear on the surface. Hahnemann’s own additions,
indeed, must be of the same character as his contributions to the
first ; i. e., they must be
collateral effects of the drugs observed on the patients to whom he
gave them. They must all, moreover, be supposed to have resulted from
the 30th dilution ; for since 1829 he had urged the
administration of all medicines at this potency. The same thing must
be said of the contributions from Hahnemann’s friends to this edition.
They may fairly be conceived to have been provings on themselves or
other healthy persons, save where, as in Wahle’s symptoms of Mezereum
and Hering’s of Arsenic, the internal evidence is strong in the
contrary direction. But they must in all cases have been evoked from
the 30th dilution ; for in the edition of the Organon
published in 1833 Hahnemann recommends all provings to be made
therewith, as yielding the best results. We have seen that the
symptoms of Natrum muriaticum contributed by others to the fourth
volume of the first edition were so obtained ; and we may fairly
extend the inference to all provings subsequently made. It is
otherwise, however, with the provings first published in the Materia
Medica Pura, in the present edition so largely incorporated
with those of later origin. These seem, from the scanty information we
have, to have been made with mother tinctures and first triturations –
repeated small doses being taken until some effect was produced.
Hahnemann was further able, at this time, to draw upon independent
sources of drug-pathogenesy. Hartlaub and Trinks has published a
Materia Medica of their own. Stapf had begun to issue his journal
known as the Archiv, and many
provings adorned its pages. Lastly, outside the Homœopathic school,
Professor Joerg, of Leipsic, was following in Hahnemann’s track and
proving medicines on himself and his students. Of all these materials
Hahnemann availed himself in the present work, which thus presents a
complex whole, made up of very heterogeneous elements, and needing
analysis that it may be appraised and used aright.
II.
It is the giving such analysis that will constitute my editorial task.
It will fall into the following categories :
1.
In the preface to each medicine Hahnemann gives a list of names of
“fellow-observers”. To this I shall append a note, stating
whether these were provers of the later or earlier times, in which
case the manner of their experimentation is to be learned from what
I have written above ; or whether their observations already
existed in print, and what information we have respecting them.
2.
In the pathogeneses themselves, the first time an author is cited I
shall state the nature of his contribution to the subject (supposing
his work to have been accessible to me). Then -having examined his
symptoms in situ– I shall append
to each one that requires it such explanation or correction as may
be necessary to set it forth in its full meaning and value.
3.
The foregoing information, and any other I may be able to supply as
to individual symptoms, [*]
will be found in notes at the bottom of the page, designated by the
small figures 1, 2, etc., and divided by a line from Hahnemann’s own
annotations, which have the usual *, +, etc. But while I have left
untouched in the text the pathogenetic phenomena themselves, I have
used greater freedom with the references to medical literature.
These sometimes require correction, more frequently explanation
-especially when transferred from the Materia
Medica Pura or from Hartlaub and Trinks’ work, in which
case Hahnemann has practised omission to a very large extent,
leaving those curious in the matter to refer to the previous
publications. I have thought that the present volume would be more
complete in itself, and more worthy of its author, were the
references fully as well as rightly given ; and have supplied
them accordingly.
[*]
See, for instance, notes to S. 114 of Colocynth and to S. 82 and
85 of Lycopodium.
RICHARD HUGHES, M. D.
Brighton, England.
* * * * *
Editor’s
preface.Whatever estimate Science may
finally place upon the discoveries and doctrines of Hahnemann, and
whatever measure of confidence in his therapeutic belief Posterity may
accord or withhold, his personality and work have achieved a position
which must render them perpetually historic. His teachings have been
so interwoven with the entire fabric of medical progress during the
last hundred years, and are so interlaced with the formative
development of the incoming century, that neither the wear and tear of
time nor the dissections of criticism will ever be able to dissociate
them. They are destined, inevitably, to run through the texture of
every page in the future annals of medicine.In the development of
therapeutic art Hahnemann’s position is more than merely transitional.
He proclaims both an epoch and an era ; he represents both
discovery and progress. To-day, as a hundred years ago, he holds in
one hand the past, in the other the future of medical achievement. The
future historian, crossing the chasm between the medicine of
speculative hypothesis and that based on observation of clinical and
pharmaco-dynamic phenomena, will unfailingly recognize Hahnemann’s
agency in bringing about that remarkable transformation in medical
thought and practice. And no exposition of Hahnemann’s tenets, no
rendition of his literary works, which fails to note and consider
their historical relations and the historic individuality of their
author, can be either adequate or just.In the task of setting forth
in the English tongue the works of Hahnemann, it thus becomes
necessary not merely to note carefully the doctrines promulgated and
the facts presented, but to exhibit also, so far as his recorded words
express, and the resources of our own language enable us, the depth of
the impression which his observations and discoveries must have
produced upon his own mind, as well as the intensity of conviction,
the earnestness of feeling, and the energy of demonstration, which
characterize all his controversial writings. Long after his lineaments
shall have faded from the canvas, his intellectual personality will
survive in his literary creations and constitute an important feature
of the medical chronicles of his time. To modify or disguise his modes
of thought and expression, or to suppress the peculiarities of his
literary style, would be an unpardonable distortion of the most
pre-eminent figure in all medical history.In that portion of this work
in which Hahnemann considers the Nature and the Treatment of Chronic
Diseases in general, and of Psora in particular, the reader will
discover several peculiarities of style, some of which are not at all
common to our English polemical literature. Among these we may
mention : (1), his long, and
often involved, sentences ; (2),
his exceedingly frequent employment of parenthetical clauses and
sentences, and his not infrequent use of the parenthesis within a
parenthesis ; (3), his
multiplicity of iterations and reiterations -occurring twice or thrice
in a single paragraph ; sometimes twice in the same
sentence- ; (4), his frequent
interjection of words and phrases expressing anew some minor feature
of the subject under discussion, but forming no part of the discussion
itself ; (5), his
introduction of qualifying words and phrases in certain peculiar and
unusual connections, likely to escape the notice of the casual or
careless reader, but evidently intended by the author to be taken at
their full significance and importance and to constitute an essential
element of the discussion. It may be said, in passing, that the
failure to note this last-mentioned characteristic of Hahnemann’s
method has occasioned much misunderstanding of his doctrines.
No
attempt has been made to render this work, or any portion of it, a
model of concise perspicuity. On the contrary, the aim has been to
retain, rather than to eliminate, the characteristic style of the
original text, in order that every point in the discussion, and every
shade of meaning should, if possible, be rendered exactly as the
author has expressed it. The careful student, certainly the
intelligent admirer, of Hahnemann could not be content with a mere
transcription of his views and observations, but must insist on the
opportunity to become familiar with his intellectual personality as he
looks out upon the present-day world through the medium of his
literary productions.
PEMBERTON DUDLEY, M. D.
PHILADELPHIA, 1896.
* * * * *
Author’s
preface.
To the first edition – 1828.
If
I did not know for what purpose I was put here on earth -to become
better myself as far as possible and to make better everything around
me, that is within my power to improve- I should have to consider
myself as lacking very much in worldly prudence to make known for the
common good, even before my death, an art which I alone possess, and
which it is within my power to make as profitable as possible by
simply keeping it secret.But in communicating to the
world this great discovery, I am sorry that I must doubt whether my
contemporaries will comprehend the logical sequence of these teachings
of mine, and will follow them carefully and gain thereby the infinite
benefits for suffering humanity which must inevitably spring from a
faithful and accurate observance of the same ; or whether,
frightened away by the unheard of nature of many of these disclosures,
they will not rather leave them untried and uninitiated and, therefore
useless.At least I cannot hope that
these important communications will fare any better than the general
Homœopathy which I have published hitherto. From unbelief in the
efficacy of the small and attenuated doses of medicine which I made
known to the medical world after a thousand warning trials, as being
the most efficient, (distrusting my faithful asseverations and
reasons), men prefer to endanger their patients for years longer with
large and larger doses. Owing to this, they generally do not live to
see the curative effects, even as was the case with myself before I
attained this diminution of dose. The cause of this was, that it was
overlooked that these doses by their attenuation were all the more
suitable for their Homœopathic use, owing to the development of their
dynamic power of operation.What would men have risked if
they had at once followed my directions in the beginning, and had made
use of just these small doses from the first ? Could anything
worse have happened than that these doses might have proved
inefficient ? They surely could do no harm ! But in their
injudicious, self-willed application of large doses for homœopathic
use they only, in fact only once again, went over that roundabout road
so dangerous to their patients, in order to reach the truth which I
myself had already successfully passed over, and indeed with
trembling, so as to save them this trouble ; and if they really
desired to heal, they were nevertheless at last compelled to arrive at
the only true goal, after having inflicted many an injury and wasted a
good part of their life. All this I had already laid before them
faithfully and frankly, and had long before given them the reasons.May they do better with the
great discovery herewith presented to them ! And if they should
not treat this discovery any better-well, then a more conscientious
and intelligent posterity will alone have the advantage to be obtained
by a faithful, punctual observance of the teachings here laid down, of
being able to deliver mankind from the numberless torments which have
rested upon the poor sick, owing to the numberless, tedious diseases,
even as far back as history extends. This great boon had not been put
within their reach by what Homœopathy had taught hitherto.* * * * *
Preface
to fourth volume.
Inquiry into the process of homœopathic healing. [*].
[*]
The work on the “Chronic Diseases” was originally
published in five parts and every part, except the second, had its
own preface, discussing some questions of general interest to Homœopathy.
– Transl.We have no means of reaching
with our senses or of gaining essential knowledge, as to the process
of life in the interior of man, and it is only at times granted us to
draw speculative conclusions from what is happening, as to the manner
in which it may have occurred or taken place ; but we are unable
to furnish conclusive proofs of our explanations, from the changes
which are observed in the inorganic kingdom ; for the changes in
living organic subjects have nothing in common with those taking place
in what is inorganic, since they take place by possesses entirely
different.It is, therefore, quite
natural, that in presenting the Homœopathic Therapeutics I did not
venture to explain how the cure of diseases is effected by operating
on the patient with substances possessing the power to excite very
similar morbid symptoms in healthy persons. I furnished, indeed, a
conjecture about it, but I did not desire to call it an explanation, i.
e., a definite explanation of the modus operandi. Nor was
this at all necessary, for it its only incumbent upon us to cure
similar symptoms correctly and successful, according to a law of
nature which is being constantly confirmed ; but not to boast
with abstract explanations, while we leave the patients uncured ;
for that is all which so-called physicians have hitherto accomplished.These physicians have made
many objections to the explanation I have given, and they would have
preferred to reject the whole homœopathic method of curing (the only
one possible), merely because they were not satisfied with my efforts
at explaining the mode of procedure which takes place in the interiors
of man during a homœopathic cure.I write the present lines,
not in order to satisfy those critics, but in order that I may present
to myself and to my successors, the genuine practical Homœopaths,
another and more probable attempt of this kind toward an explanation.
This I present, because the human mind feels within it the
irresistible, harmless and praise-worthy impulse, to give some account
to itself as to the mode in which man accomplishes good by his
actions.As I have elsewhere shown, it
is undeniable, that our vital force, without the assistance of active
remedies of human art, cannot overcome even the slight acute diseases
(if it does not succumb to them) and restore some sort of health,
without sacrificing a part (often a large part) of the fluid and the
solid parts of the organism through a so-called crisis. How our vital
force effects this, will ever remain unknown to us ; but so much
is sure, that this force cannot overcome even these diseases in a
direct manner, nor without such sacrifices. The Chronic Diseases,
which spring from miasms, cannot be healed unaided, even by such
sacrifices, nor can real health be restored by this force alone. But
it is just as certain, that even if this force is enabled by the true
(homœopathic) healing art, guided by the human understanding, to
overpower and overcome (to cure) not only the quickly transient but
also the chronic diseases arising from miasms in a direct manner and
without such sacrifices, without loss of body and life, nevertheless,
it is always this power, the vital force, which conquers. It is in
this case as with the army of a country, which drives the enemy out of
the country ; this army ought to be called victorious, although
it may not have won the victory without foreign auxiliaries. It is the
organic vital force of our body which cures natural diseases of every
kind directly and without any sacrifices, as soon as it is enabled by
means of the correct (homœopathic) remedies to win the victory. This
force would not, indeed, have been able to conquer without this
assistance ; for our organic vital force, taken alone, is only
sufficient to maintain the unimpeded progress of life, so long as man
is not morbidly affected by the hostile operation of forces causing
disease.
Unassisted
,
the vital force is no match to these hostile powers ; it hardly
opposes a force equal to the hostile operation, and this, indeed, with
many signs of its own sufferings (which we call morbid symptoms). By
its own power, our vital force would never be able to overcome the foe
of chronic disease, nor even to conquer transient diseases, without
considerable losses inflicted on some parts of the organism, if it
remained without external aid, without the assistance of genuine
remedies. To give such support is the duty enjoined on the physician’s
understanding by the Preserver of life.As I have said above, our
vital force hardly opposes an
equal opposition to the foe causing the disease, and yet no
enemy can be overcome except by a superior force. Only homœopathic
medicine can give the superior ; power to the invalidated vital
force.Of itself this vital
principle, being only an organic vital force intended to preserve an
undisturbed health, opposes only a weak resistance to the invading
morbific enemy ; as the disease grows and increases, it opposes a
greater resistance, but at best, it is only an equal resistance ;
with weakly patients it is not even equal, but weaker. This force is
neither capable, nor destined, nor created for an overpowering
resistance, which will do no harm to itself.But if we physicians are able
to present and oppose to this instinctive vital force it morbific
enemy, as it were magnified through the action of homœopathic
medicines -even if it should be enlarged every time only by a
little- if in this way the image of the morbific foe be magnified to
the apprehension of the vital principle through homœopathic
medicines, which in a delusive manner simulate the original disease,
we gradually cause and compel this instinctive vital force to increase
its energies by degrees, and to increase it energies by degrees, and
to increase them more and more, and at last to such a degree that it
becomes far more powerful than the original disease. The consequence
of this is, that the vital force again becomes sovereign in its
domain, can again hold and direct the reins of sanitary progress,
while the apparent increase of the disease caused by homœopathic
medicines, disappears of itself, as soon as we, seeing the
preponderance of the restored vital force, i.
e., of the restored health, cease to use these remedies.The fund or the fundamental
essence of this spiritual vital principle, imparted to us men by the
infinitely merciful Creator, is incredibly great, if we physicians
understand how to maintain its integrity in days of health, by
directing men to a healthy mode of living, and how to invoke and
augment it in diseases by purely homœopathic treatment.* * * * *
Preface
to fifth volume.
Dilutions and potencies (dynamizations).
Dilutions
,
properly so-called, exist almost solely in objects of taste and of
color. A solution of salty and bitter substances becomes continually
more deprived of its taste the more water is added, and eventually it
has hardly any taste, no matter how much it may be shaken. So, also, a
solution of coloring matter, by the admixture of more and more water,
becomes at last almost colorless, and any amount of shaking will not
increase its color.These are, and continue to
be, real attenuations or dilutions, but no dynamizations.Homœopathic Dynamizations
are processes by which the medicinal properties, which are latent in
natural substances while in their crude state, become aroused, and
then become enabled to act in an almost spiritual manner on our life ;
i. e., on our sensible and
irritable fibre. This development of the properties of crude natural
substances (dynamization) takes place, as I have before taught, in the
case of dry substances by means of trituration in a mortar, but in the
case of fluid substances, by means of shaking or succussion, which is
also a trituration. These preparations cannot be simply designated as
dilutions, although every preparation of this kind, in order that it
may be raised to a higher potency ; i.
e., in order that the medicinal properties still latent
within it may be yet farther awakened and developed, must first
undergo a further attenuation, in order that the trituration or
succussion may enter still further into the very essence of the
medicinal substance, and may thus also liberate and expose the more
subtle part of the medicinal powers that lie hidden more deeply, which
could not be effected by any amount of trituration and succussion of
the substances in their concentrated form.We frequently read in homœopathic
books that, in the case of one or another person in a certain case of
disease, some high (dilution) dynamization of a medicine was of no use
at all, but a lower potency proved effectual, while others have seen
more success from higher potencies. But no one in such cases
investigates the cause of the great indifference of these effects.
What prevents the preparer of the medicines (and this ought to be the
homœopathic physician himself ; he himself ought to forge and
whet the arms with which to fight the diseases) -what prevents him, in
preparing a potency, from giving 10, 20, 50 and more succussive
strokes against a somewhat hard, elastic body to every vial containing
one drop of the lower potency with 99 drops of alcohol, so as to
obtain strong potencies ? This would be vastly more effective
than giving only a few nerveless succussive strokes, which will
produce little more than dilutions, which ought not to be the case.The perfection of our unique
art of healing and the welfare of the patients seem to make it worth
while for the physician to take the trouble necessary to secure the
utmost efficiency in his medicines.Modern wiseacres have even
sneered at the 30th potency, and would only use the lower, less
developed and more massive preparations in larger doses, whereby they
have been, however, unable to effect all that our art can accomplish.
If, however, every potency is dynamized with the same number of
succussive strokes, we obtain, even in the fiftieth potency, medicines
of the most penetrating efficacy, so that every minute pellet
moistened with it, after being dissolved in a quantity of water, can
and must be taken in small parts, if we do not wish to produce too
violent an action with sensitive patients, while we must remember that
such a preparation contains almost all the properties latent in the
drug now fully developed, and these can only then come into full
activity.Paris, December 19th, 1838.
* * * * *
Preface.
Concerning the technical part of Homœopathy.
[*].
[*]
This preface was prefixed to Vol. III. of the “Chronic
Diseases,” published in the year 1837 – Tr.Since I last [*]
addressed the public concerning our healing art, I have had among
other things also the opportunity to gain experience as to the best
possible mode of administering the doses of the medicines to the
patients, and I herewith communicate what I have found best in this
respect.
[*]
In the beginning of the year 1834 I wrote the first two parts of
this work and although they together contain only thirty-six sheets,
my former publisher, Mr. Arnold, in Dresden, took two years to
publish these thirty-six sheets. By whom was the thus delayed ?
My acquaintances can guess that.A small pellet of one of the
highest dynamizations of a medicine laid dry upon the tongue, or the
moderate smelling of an opened vial wherein one or more such pellets
are contained, proves itself the smallest and weakest dose with the
shortest period of duration in its effects. Still there are numerous
patients of so excitable a nature, that they are sufficiently affected
by such a dose in slight acute ailments to be cured by it if the
remedy is homœopathically selected. Nevertheless the incredible
variety among patients as to their irritability, their age, their
spiritual and bodily development, their vital power and especially as
to the nature of their disease, necessitates a great variety in their
treatment, and also in the administration to them of the doses of
medicines. For their diseases may be of various kinds : either a
natural and simple one but lately arisen, or it may be a natural and
simple one but an old case, or it may be a complicated one (a
combination of several miasmata), or again what is the most frequent
and worst case, it may have been spoiled by a perverse medical
treatment, and loaded down with medicinal diseases.I can here limit myself only
to this latter case, as the other cases cannot be arranged in tabular
form for the weak and negligent, but must be left to the accuracy, the
industry and the intelligence of able men, who are masters of their
art.Experience has shown me, as
it has no doubt also shown to most of my followers, that it is most
useful in diseases of any magnitude (no excepting even the most acute,
and still more so in the half-acute, in the tedious and most tedious)
to give to the patient the powerful homœopathic pellet or pellets
only in solution, and this solution in divided doses. In this way we
give the medicine, dissolved in seven to twenty tablespoonfuls of
water without any addition, in acute and very acute diseases every
six, four or two hours ; where the danger is urgent, even every
hour or every half-hour, a tablespoonful at a time ; with weak
persons or children, only a small part of a tablespoonful (one or two
teaspoonfuls or coffeespoonfuls) may be given as a dose.In chronic diseases I have
found it best to give a dose (e. g.,
a spoonful) of a solution medicine a least every two days, more
usually every day.But since water (even
distilled water) commences after a few days to be spoil, whereby the
power of the small quantity of medicine contained is destroyed, the
addition of a little alcohol is necessary, or where this is not
practicable, or if the patient cannot bear it, I add a few small
pieces of hard charcoal to the watery solution. This answers the
purpose, except that in the latter case the fluid in a few days
receives a blackish tint. This is caused by shaking the liquid, as is
necessary every time before giving a dose of medicine, as may be seen
below.Before proceeding, it is
important to observe, that our vital principle cannot well bear that
the same unchanged dose of medicine be given even twice in succession,
much less more frequently to a patient. For by this the good effect of
the former dose of medicine is either neutralized in part, or new
symptoms proper to the medicine, symptoms which have not before been
present in the disease, appear, impeding the cure. Thus even a well
selected homœopathic medicine produces ill effects and attains its
purpose imperfectly or not at all. Thence come the many contradictions
of homœopathic physicians with respect to the repetition of doses.But in taking one and the
same medicine repeatedly (which is indispensable
to secure the cure of a serious, chronic disease), if the dose is in
every case varied and modified only a little in its degree of
dynamization, then the vital force of the patient will calmly, and as
it were willingly receive the same
medicine even at brief intervals very many times in succession with
the best results, every time increasing the well-being of the patient.This slight change in the
degree of dynamization is even effected, if the bottle which contains
the solution of one or more pellets is merely well shaken five or six
times, every time before taking it.Now when the physician has in
this way used up the solution of the medicine that had been prepared,
if the medicine continues useful, he will take one or two pellets of
the same medicine in a lower potency (e. g.
if before he had used the thirtieth dilution, he will now take one or
two pellets of the twenty-fourth), and will make a solution in about
as many spoonfuls of water, shaking up the bottle, and adding a little
alcohol or a few pieces of charcoal. This last solution may then be
taken in the same manner, or at longer intervals, perhaps also less of
the solution at a time ; but every time the solution must be
shaken up five or six times. This will be continued so long as the
remedy still produces improvement and until new ailments (such as have
never yet occurred with other patients in this disease), appear ;
for in such a case a new remedy will have to be used. On any day when
the remedy has produced too strong an action, the dose should be
omitted for a day. If the symptoms of the disease alone appear, but
are considerably aggravated even during the more moderate use of the
medicine, then the time has come to break off in the use of the
medicine for one or two weeks, and to await a considerable
improvement. [*].
[*]
In treating acute cases of disease the homœopathic physician will
proceed in a similar manner. He will dissolve one (two) pellet of
the highly potentized, well selected medicine in seven, ten or
fifteen tablespoonfuls of water (without addition) by shaking the
bottle. He will then, according as the disease is more or less
acute, and more or less dangerous, give the patient every half hour,
or every hour, every two, three, four, six hours (after again well
shaking the bottle) a whole or a half tablespoonful of the solution,
or, in the case of a child, even less. If the physician sees no new
symptoms develop, he will continue at these intervals, until the
symptoms present at first begin to be aggravated ; then he will
give it at longer intervals and less at a time.As is well know, in cholera
the suitable medicine has often to be given at far shorter
intervals.Children are always given
these solutions from their usual drinking vessels ; a teaspoon
for drinking is to them unusual and suspicious, and they will refuse
the tasteless liquid at once on that account. A little sugar may be
added for their sake.When the medicine has been
consumed and it is found necessary to continue the same remedy, if the
physician should desire to prepare a new portion of medicine from the
same degree of potency, it will be necessary to give to the new
solution as many shakes, as the number of shakes given to the last
portion amount to when summed up together, and then a few more, before
the patient is given the first dose ; but after that, with the
subsequent doses, the solution is to be shaken up only five or six
times.In this manner the homœopathic
physician will derive all the benefit from a well selected remedy,
which can be obtained in any special case of chronic disease by doses
given through the mouth.But if the diseased organism
is affected by the physician through this same appropriate remedy at
the same time in sensitive spots other than the nerves of the mouth
and the alimentary canal, i. e. if
this same remedy that has been found useful is at the same time in its
watery solution rubbed in (even in small quantities) into one or more
parts of the body which are most free from the morbid ailments (e.
g. on an arm, or on the thigh or leg, which have neither
cutaneous eruptions, nor pains, nor cramps) -then the curative effects
are much in creased. The limbs
which are thus rubbed with the solution may also be varied, first one,
then another. Thus the physician will receive a greater action from
the medicine homœopathically suitable to the chronic patient, and can
cure him more quickly, than by merely internally administering the
remedy.This mode of procedure has
been frequently proved by myself and found extraordinarily curative ;
yea, attended by the most startling good effects ; the medicine
taken internally being at the same time rubbed on the skin externally.
This procedure will also explain the wonderful cures, of rare
occurrence indeed, where chronic crippled patients with
sound skin recovered quickly and permanently by a few baths
in a mineral water, the medicinal constituents of which were to a
great degree homœopathic to their chronic disease. [*].
[*]
On the other hand such baths have also inflicted a proportionally
greater injury with patients who suffered from ulcers and cutaneous
eruptions ; for these were driven by them from the skin, as may
be done by other external means, when after a short period of
health, the vital force of the patient transferred the internal
uncured disease to another part of the body, and one much more
important to like and health. Thus e.
g. may be
produced the obscuration of the crystalline lens, the paralysis of
the optic nerve, the destruction of the sense of hearing ;
pains also of innumerable kinds in consequence torture the patient,
his mental organs suffer, his mind becomes obscured, spasmodic
asthma threatens to suffocate him, or an apoplectic stroke carries
him off, or some other dangerous or unbearable disease takes the
place of the former ailment. Therefore the homœopathic remedy given
internally must never be rubbed in on parts which suffer from
external ailments.The limb, therefore, on which
the solution is to be rubbed in, must be free from cutaneous ailments.
In order to introduce also here change and variation, when several of
the limbs are free from cutaneous ailments, one limb after the other
should be used, in alternation, on different days, (best on days when
the medicine is not taken internally). A small quantity of the
solution should be rubbed in with the hand, until the limb is dry.
Also for this purpose, the bottle should be shaken five or six times.Convenient as the mode of
administering the medicine above described may be, and much as it
surely advances the cure of chronic diseases, nevertheless, the
greater quantity of alcohol or whiskey or the several lumps of
charcoal which have to be added in warmer weather to preserve the
watery solution were still objectionable to me with many patients.I have, therefore, lately
found the following mode of administration preferable with careful
patients. From a mixture of about five tablespoonfuls of pure water
and five tablespoonfuls of French brandy -which is kept on hand in a
bottle, 200, 300 or 400 drops (according as the solution is to be
weaker or stronger) are dropped into a little vial, which may be
half-filled with it, and in which the medicinal powder or the pellet
or pellets of the medicine have been placed. This vial is stoppered
and shaken until the medicine is dissolved. From this solution one,
two, three or several drops, according to the irritability and the
vital force of the patient, are dropped into a cup, containing a
spoonful of water ; this is then well stirred and given to the
patient, and where more especial care is necessary, only the half of
it may be given ; half a spoonful of this mixture may also well
be used for the above mentioned external rubbing.On days, when only the latter
is administered, as also when it is taken internally, the little vial
containing the drops must every time be briskly shaken five or six
times ; so also the drop or drops of medicine with the
tablespoonful of water must be well stirred in the cup.It would be still better if
instead of the cup a vial should be used, into which a tablespoonful
of water is put, which can then be shaken five or six times and then
wholly or half emptied for a dose.Frequently it is useful in
treating chronic diseases to take the medicine, or to rub it in in the
evening, shortly before going to sleep, because we have then less
disturbance to fear from without, than when it is done earlier.When I was still giving the
medicines in undivided portions, each with some water at a time, I
often found that the potentizing in the attenuating glasses effected
by ten shakes was too strong (i. e.,
the medicinal action too strongly developed) and I, therefore, advised
only two succussions. But during the last years, since I have been
giving every dose of medicine in an incorruptible solution, divided
over fifteen, twenty or thirty days and even more, no potentizing in
an attenuating vial is found too strong, and I again use ten strokes
with each. So I herewith take back what I wrote on this subject three
years ago in the first volume of this book on page 149.In cases where a great
irritability of the patient is combined with extreme debility, and the
medicine can only be administered by allowing the patient to smell a
few small pellets contained in a vial, when the medicine is to be used
for several days, I allow the patient to smell daily of a different
vial, containing the same medicine, indeed, but every time of a lower
potency, once or twice with each nostril according as I wish him to be
affected more or less.* * * * *
List
of medicines.AGARICUS MUSCARIUS.
ALUMINA.
AMMONIUM CARBONICUM.
AMMONIUM MURIATICUM.
ANACARDIUM ORIENTALE.
ANTIMONIUM CRUDUM.
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
AURUM.
AURUM MURIATICUM.
BARYTA CARBONICA.
BORAX VENATA.
CALCAREA CARBONICA.
CARBO ANIMALIS.
CARBO VEGETABILIS.
CAUSTICUM.
CLEMATIS ERECTA.
COLOCYNTHIS.
CONIUM MACULATUM.
CUPRUM.
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
DULCAMARA.
EUPHORBIUM.
GRAPHITES.
GUAJACUM.
HEPAR SULPHURIS CALCAREUM.
IODIUM.
KALI CARBONICUM.
LYCOPODIUM.
MAGNESIA CARBONICA.
MAGNESIA MURIATICA.
MANGANUM.
MEZEREUM.
MURIATICUM ACIDUM.
NATRUM CARBONICUM.
NATRUM MURIATICUM.
NITRI ACIDUM.
NITRUM.
PETROLEUM.
PHOSPHORUS.
PHOSPHORICUM ACIDUM.
PLATINA.
SARSAPARILLA.
SEPIA.
STANNUM.
SULPHUR.
SULPHURICUM ACIDUM.* * * * *
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2006