The Chronic
Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homœopathic Cure.
by Dr Samuel Hahnemann
Presented By Médi-T
(Page 90 … 99)
In this first
simple state and simple cure, when the chancre (or the bubo) is still
present, and there is no complication with a developed psora, no
prominent chronic ailment from a psoric origin (usually there is none
such with young, lively persons), and with latent psora syphilis
combines as little as sycosis – in this first
state it needs only one little dose of the best mercurial remedy, in
order to cure thoroughly and forever the whole syphilis with its
chancre, within fourteen days. In a few days after taking such a dose
of mercury, the chancre (without any external application) becomes a
clean sore with a little mild pus, and heals of itself – as a
convincing proof, that the venereal malady is also fully extinguished
within; and it does not leave behind the least scar, or the least
spot, showing any other color than the other healthy skin. But the
chancre, which is not treated with external application, would never
heal, if the internal syphilis had not been already annihilated and
extinguished by the dose of mercury; for so long as it exists in its
place, it is the natural and unmistakable proof of even the least
remainder of an existing syphilis.I have, indeed in the second
edition of the first part of Materia Medica
Pura (Dresden, 1822), described the preparation of the pure
semi-oxide of mercury, and I still consider this to be one of the most
excellent anti-syphilitic medicines; but it is difficult to prepare it
in sufficient purity. In order, therefore, to reach this wished for
goal in a still simpler manner, free from all detours, and yet just as
perfectly (for in the preparation of medicines we cannot proceed in
too simple a manner), it is best to proceed in the way given below, so
that one grain of quite pure running quick-silver is triturated three
times, with 100 grains of sugar of milk each time, up to the millionth
attenuation, in three hours, and one grain of this third trituration
is dissolved, and then potentized through twenty-seven diluting phials
up to (x) the decillionth degree, as is taught at the end of this
volume, with respect to the dynamization of the other dry medicines.I formerly used the billionth
dynamization (ii) of this preparation in I, 2 or 3 fine pellets
moistened with this dilution, as a dose, and this was done
successfully for such cures; although the preparation of the higher
potencies (iv, vi, viii), and finally the decillionth potency (x),
show some advantages, in their quick, penetrating and yet mild action
for this purpose; but in cases where a second or third dose (however
seldom needed) should be found necessary, a lower potency may then be
taken.Just as the continued
presence of the chancre (or the bubo) during the cure shows the
continued presence of syphilis, so when the chancre (and the bubo)
heal merely from the internally applied mercury, without any addition
of a remedy used for the local symptom, and yet this disappears
without leaving any trace of its former presence; it is
incontrovertibly sure, that also every trace of the internal syphilis
was extinguished at the moment of the completion of the cure of the
chancre or the bubo.But just as incontrovertibly
does it follow that every disappearance of the chancre (or the bubo)
owing to a mere local destruction, since it was no real cure founded
on the extirpation of the internal venereal disease through the
internally given appropriate mercury medicine, leaves to us the
certainty that the syphilis remains behind; and every one who supposes
himself healed by any such merely local, pretended cure, is to be,
considered as much venereally diseased as he was before the
destruction of the chancre.The second
state in which, as mentioned above, syphilis may have to be treated,
is the rare case when an otherwise healthy person, affected with no
other chronic disease (and thus without any developed psora), has
experienced this injudicious driving away of the chancre through local
applications, effected by an ordinary physician in a short time and
without attacking the organism overmuch with internal and external
remedies. Even in such a case, -as we have not as yet to combat any
complication with psora- all outbreaks of the secondary venereal
disease may be avoided, and the man may be freed from every trace of
the venereal miasma through the before-mentioned simple internal cure
effected by a like dose of the above mentioned mercurial medicine
-although the certainty of his cure can no more be so manifestly
proved as if the chancre had still been in existence during this
internal cure, and as if it had become a mild ulcer simply through
this internal remedy, and had been thus manifestly cured of itself.But here also there may be
found a sign of the non-completed as well as of the completed cure of
the internal syphilis which has not yet broken out into the venereal
disease; but this sign will only manifest itself to an exact observer.
In case the chancre has been driven out through local application,
even if the remedies used had not been very acrid, there will always
remain in the place where it stood, as a sign of the unextinguished
internal syphilis, a discolored, reddish, red or blue scar; while on
the contrary, when the cure of the whole venereal disease has been
effected by the internal remedy, and if thus the chancre heals of
itself without the action of an external application, and when it
disappears because it is no more needed as a substitute and alleviator
of an internal venereal disorder which now has ceased, then the spot
of the former chancre can no more be recognized, for the skin covering
that place will be just as smooth and of the same color as the rest,
so that no trace can be discerned of the spot where the chancre had
stood.Now if the Homœopathic
physician has carefully taken cognizance of the presence of the
discolored scar remaining after the quick, merely local expulsion of
the venereal local symptom, as a sign of the unextinguished internal
syphilis, and if the person to be healed is otherwise in good health,
and consequently his venereal disorder is not yet complicated with
psora, he will also, even now, be able to free him from every
remainder of the venereal. miasma by one dose of the best preparation
of mercury as above described, and he will be convinced that the cure
is completed, from the fact that during the time of the activity of
the specific remedy the scar will again assume the healthy color of
the other skin and all discoloration of that spot will disappear.Even when, after the
expulsion of the chancre by local applications, the bubo has already
broken out but the patient is not yet seized with any other chronic
disease, and consequently the internal syphilis is not yet complicated
with a developed psora (which is nevertheless a rare case), the same
treatment will also here, while the bubo is only developing, produce a
cure; and its completion will be recognized by the same signs.In both cases, if they have
been rightly treated, the cure is a complete one, and no outbreak of
the venereal disease need any more be apprehended.The most difficult of all
these cases, the third, is still
to be treated: when the man at the time of the syphilitic infection
was already laboring under a chronic disease, so that his syphilis was
complicated with psora, even while the chancre yet existed, or when,
even while there was no chronic disease in the body at the outbreak of
the chancre, and the indwelling psora could only be recognized by its
tokens, an allopathic physician has, nevertheless, destroyed the local
symptom, not only slowly and with very painful external applications,
but has also subjected him for a long time to an internal treatment,
weakening and strongly affecting him so that the general health has
been undermined and the psora which had as yet been latent within him
has been brought to its development and has broken out into chronic
ailments, and these irrepressibly combine with the internal syphilis,
the local symptom, of which had been at the same time destroyed in
such an irrational manner. Psora can only be complicated with the
venereal disease when it has been developed and when it has ultimated
itself in a manifest chronic disease; but not when it is as yet latent
and slumbering. By the latter the cure of syphilis is not obstructed,
but when complicated with developed psora, it
is impossible to cure the venereal disease alone.Only too often, I should say,
do we find the syphilis which has remained uncured after the merely
local destruction of the chancre, complicated with awakened psora, not
always because the psora was already developed before the venereal
infection -for this is rarely the case with young people- but because
it is violently awakened and brought to its outbreak by the usual
treatment of the venereal disease. By means of friction with mercury,
large doses of calomel, corrosive sublimate and similar acrid
mercurial remedies, (which originate fever, dysenteric abdominal
ailments, chronic exhausting salivation, pains in the limbs,
sleeplessness, etc., without possessing sufficient anti-syphilitic
power to cure the chancre-miasma mildly, quickly and perfectly,) they
assault the venereal patient often for many months, with the
intermediate use of many weakening warm baths and purgatives; so that
the internal slumbering psora (whose nature causes it to break forth
in all great convulsions and in the weakening of the general health)
is awakened before the syphilis can be cured by such all injudicious
treatment, and thus becomes associated and complicated therewith.There arises in this manner
and through this combination what is called a masked,
spurious syphilis, and in England pseudo
syphilis, a monster of a double disease, [*]
which no physician hitherto has been able to cure, because no
physician hitherto has been acquainted with the psora in its great
extent and its nature, neither in its latent nor its developed state;
and no one suspected this dreadful combination with syphilis, much
less perceived it. No one, therefore, could heal the developed psora,
the only cause of the uncurableness of this bastard syphilis, -nor
could they in consequence free the syphilis from this horrible
combination so as to make it curable, just as the psora remains
incurable if the syphilis has not been extirpated.[*]
Yea, after such a treatment it is even more than a double disease;
the sharp mercurial medicines, in large and frequent doses, have
also added their medicinal disease, which when we consider in
addition the than a double disease; the sharp mercurial medicines,
in large and frequent doses, have also added their medicinal
disease, which when we consider in addition the debility caused by
such treatment must place the patient in a most sad state. In such a
case hepar sulphuris is probably to be preferred to the pure
sulphur.In order to reach this
so-called masked venereal disease successfully, the following rule
must serve the homœopathic physician:After removing all hurtful
influences that affect the patients from without and after settling on
a light and yet nourishing and strengthening diet for the patient, let
him first give the anti-psoric medicine which is homœopathically the
best fitting to the then prevailing state of disease, as will be shown
below; and when this medicine has completed its action, also probably
a second, most suitable to the still prominent psora symptoms, and
these should be allowed to act against the psora, until they have
effected all that can be at present done against it – then should be
given the dose above described of the best mercurial preparation to
act against the venereal disease for three, five to seven weeks; i.e.,
so long as it will continue to produce an improvement in the venereal
symptoms.In inveterate and difficult
cases, however, this first course will hardly accomplish all that is
desired. There usually still remain some ailments and disorders, which
cannot be definitely classed as purely psoric, and others which cannot
be classed as definitely syphilitic, and these require yet some
additional aid. A repetition of a similar process of cure is here
required; i.e., first another
application of one or more of the anti-psoric remedies that have not
yet been used, and which are homœopathically the most appropriate,
until whatever seems still unsyphilitically morbid –i.e.,
psoric- may disappear, when the before mentioned dose of the mercurial
remedy, but in another potency, should be given again and allowed to
complete its action, until the manifest venereal symptoms (the
pricking, painful ulcer of the tonsils, the round copper-colored spots
that shimmer through the epidermis, the eruptive pimples which do not
itch and are found chiefly in the face upon a bluish-red foundation,
the painless cutaneous ulcers on the scalp and the penis, which are
smooth, pale, clean, merely covered with mucus, and almost level with
the healthy skin, etc., and the boring, nightly pains in the
exostoses) have entirely passed away. But since these secondary
venereal symptoms are so changeable that their temporary disappearance
gives no certainty of their complete extinction, we must also wait for
that more conclusive sign of the complete extirpation of the venereal
miasm afforded by the return of the healthy color and the entire
disappearance of the discoloration found in the scar which remains
after the extirpation of the chancre by local, corrosive applications.I have, in my practice, found
only two cases [*] of the
threefold complication of the three chronic miasms, the figwart
disease with the venereal chancre miasm and at the same time a
developed psora, and these cases were cured according to the same
method; i.e., the psora was
treated first, then the one of the other two chronic miasmata, the
symptoms of which were at the time the most prominent, and then the
last one. The remaining psoric symptoms had then still to be combated
with suitable remedies, and then lastly what there yet remained of
sycosis or syphilis, by means of the remedies given above. I would
also remark that the complete cure of sycosis which has taken
possession of the whole organism before the outbreak of its local
symptoms is demonstrated, like that of the chancre miasma, by the
complete disappearance of the discoloration on the spot of the skin,
which discoloration remains after every merely local destruction of
the figwart as a sign of the unextirpated sycosis.[*]
A master tiler from the Saxon-Erz Mountains, whose dissolute
wife had infected him with a venereal disease in his genitals,
concerning which it was not apparent from his description whether it
was a chancre or a figwart, had been so maltreated by violent
mercurial remedies that he had lost his uvula, and his nose was so
affected that the fleshy parts had mostly been eaten away, and the
remaining part was swollen and inflamed and pierced like a honeycomb
with ulcers. This was attended with great pain and an intolerably
fetid smell. In addition he had a psoric ulcer on the leg. The
anti-psoric remedies improved the ulcers up to a certain degree:
they healed the ulcer on the leg, they took away the burning pain
and most of the fetid smell of the nose; also the remedies given to
cure the sycosis caused some improvement – but as to the sum total
nothing further was effected until he received a small dose of
protoxide of mercury, after which everything was fully healed and he
was restored to full health, excepting the irreparable loss of his
nose.
PSORA.
I think it necessary before
proceeding to the doctrine of the third
chronic miasma, the most important of all, psora, to premise the
following general remark:For the infection with the
only three known chronic miasmatic diseases there is usually needed
but one moment; but the development of this tinder of infection, so
that it becomes a general disease of the entire organism, needs a
longer time. Not until a certain number of days have elapsed, when the
miasmatic disease has received its complete internal development in
the whole man -not until then, from the fullness of internal
suffering, the local symptom breaks forth, destined by a kind nature
to take upon itself in a certain sense the internal disease, and in so
far to divert it in a palliative manner and to soothe it, so that it
may not be able to injure and endanger the vital economy too much. The
local symptom has its place on the least dangerous part of the body,
the external skin, and, indeed, on that part of the skin where during
the infection, the miasma had touched the nearest nerves.This process of nature, which
repeats itself continually and evermore in the same manner in chronic
miasmata, aye, – even in those which are acute and constant, – ought
not to have escaped the penetration of physicians, at least not in
venereal diseases, to the treatment of which they have applied
themselves now for more than three hundred years; and then they could
not have avoided drawing a conclusion as to the process of nature in
the other two chronic miasmata. It was, therefore, irrational and
unpardonably thoughtless of them to suppose that every chancre evolved
by the organism after several days, often after quite a number of
days, as the result of the completed internal malady, was a thing
merely adventitious from without and situated on the skin without any
internal connection, so that it might be simply removed by
cauterizing, “so as to prevent the poison from the chancre (scilicet)
from being absorbed into the internal parts, and thus from causing man
to be afflicted with the venereal disease.” Irrational and
unpardonably thoughtless was this false idea of the origin of the
venereal chancre, which caused the injurious practice of the external
cauterization of the chancre, producing as its unavoidable, shameful
effect, the breaking out of the venereal disease from the internal
which has continued in its diseased state. This has been the case in
several hundred thousands of cases these last three centuries. Just as
irrational and thoughtless is the notion of physicians of the old
school, even of the most modern times, that itch is merely
a disease of the skin, in which the internal portion of the
body takes no part. According to this groundless supposition,
therefore, nothing better can be done than to remove this ailment from
the surface of the skin, although the extirpation of the internal
psora disease which causes the cutaneous eruption is necessary as an
aid, and when this is cured also the cutaneous ailment, being the
necessary consequence of the internal disease, will naturally
disappear – cessante causa, cessat effectus.For in its complete state, i.e.,
so long as the original eruption is still present on the skin so as to
assuage the internal malady, the entire disease of the psora may be
cured most easily, quickly and surely.But when by the destruction
of this original cutaneous eruption, which acts vicariously for the
internal malady, it has been robbed then the psora is put in the
unnatural position of dominating in a merely one-sided manner the
internal finer parts of the whole organism, and thus of being
compelled to develop its secondary symptoms.How important and necessary
the cutaneous eruption is for the original psora, and how carefully in
the only thorough cure of itch, that is, the internal cure, every
external removal of the eruption must be avoided, we may see from the
fact that the most severe chronic ailments have followed as secondary
symptoms of the internal psora after the original itch-eruption has
been driven out, and that when, in consequence of a great revolution
in the organism, this itching eruption re-appears on the skin, the
secondary symptoms are so suddenly removed, that these grievous
ailments, often of many years’ standing, are wont to disappear, at
least temporarily, as if by a miracle. See the before quoted
observations of older physicians, Nos. 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, (9), 16, (17),
(21), 23, 33, 35, 39, 41, 54, 58, 60, 72, 81, 87, 89, 94.But let no one suppose that
an internal psora, which, after the external destruction of the
original cutaneous eruption, has broken out into secondary chronic
ailments, can, through the re-appearance of such an itch-like eruption
on the skin, come into just as normal a state as before, or that it
can be cured just as easily as if it were still the original eruption
and as if this had not been as yet removed.This is not at all the case.
Even the eruption following immediately after the infection has no
such unchanging constancy and pertinacity on the skin as the chancre
and the figwarts show on the spots where they first appear,[*]
but not infrequently disappears from the skin also from other causes [**]
than from artificial remedies used purposely for its destruction, and
so also from other causes unknown.[***]So that the physician must
not waste any time even in the original eruption, if he would complete
the cure while the itch-disease is still entire, by the use of
internal anti-psoric remedies. Such a respite can be expected still
less in this secondary eruption, which has been brought out on the
skin by any cause after the local extirpation of the eruption; for the
second eruption is wont to be far more inconstant and changeable, so
that it often passes away on much slighter provocation in a few days
-a proof that it lacks much of the complete quality of the primitive
itch-eruption, so that the physician cannot count on it in the
thorough cure of the psora.This proneness to change, in
the itch-like eruption which has been called a second time to the
skin, seems evidently to be caused by the fact that the internal
psora, after the destruction of the original itch-eruption is unable
to give to the secondary eruption the full qualities belonging to the
primary eruption, and is already much more inclined to unfold itself
in a variety of other chronic diseases; wherefore a thorough cure is
now much more difficult, and is simply to be conducted as if directed
against the internal psora.The cure is not, therefore,
advanced by producing such a secondary eruption through internal
remedies, as has sometimes been effectually attempted (see Nos. 3, 9,
59, 89); or by its re-appearance through other unknown causes (see
Nos. 1, 5, 6, 8, 16, 23, 28, 29, 33, 35, 39, 41, 54, 58, 60, 72, 80,
81, 87, 89, 94) or, especially, through the help of a fever (see No.
64, also 55, 56, 74). Such a secondary eruption is always very
transitory, and so unreliable and rare that we cannot build our hope
of cure on it, nor expect from it the advancement of any thorough
cure.—–
[*]
Neither of these ever passes away of itself, unless destroyed
externally on purpose, or the entire disease is healed internally.[**]
E.g. through cold, see No. 67 of
the above-mentioned observations; through small-pox, No. 39; through
warm baths, No. 35.[***]
See Nos. 9, 7, 26 (36), 50, 58, 61, 64, 65, in which observations it
may be seen at the same time that after such disappearances of the
original itch-eruption without appreciable cause just as many ill
effects are wont to follow as when it has been driven away
artificially through local applications.
Copyright © Médi-T
2006