The Chronic
Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homœopathic Cure.
by Dr Samuel Hahnemann
Presented By Médi-T
(Page 140 … 149)
The homœopathic physician
who is a master of his art, and God be praised! there is now a not
inconsiderable number of such masters in homœopathy, never allows a
drop of blood to be drawn from his patient; he never needs any such or
similar means of weakening the body, for such a course evermore
remains the negation of curing. Only journeymen, half homœopaths
still, I am sorry to say, use such a contradictio
in adjecto (weakening while desiring to cure). [*]Only in the one case, where,
as in many chronic diseases, the delay in passing evacuations causes
great trouble, he will permit (in the
beginning of the treatment before the antipsoric medicine
has had the time [in its after-effects] to produce improvement in this
point) if the stool is not passed for three or four days, a clyster of
clean, lukewarm water without the least admixture, also perhaps a
second, if an evacuation does not result within a quarter of an hour.
Rarely a third injection will be needed, after waiting a third quarter
of an hour. This help which acts chiefly mechanically by expanding the
rectum, is harmless when repeated after three or four days if it is
necessary, and, as before mentioned, only at the beginning of the
treatment – for the antipsoric medicines, among which in this respect
lycopodium next to sulphur has the pre-eminence, usually soon remove
this difficulty.The inexcusable wasting
fontanelles the homœopathic physician must not at once suppress, if
the patient has had them for some time (often for many years), nor
before the antipsoric treatment has already made perceptible progress,
but if they can be diminished without totally stopping them, this may
safely be done even in the beginning of the treatment.So also the physician should
not at once discontinue the woollen underclothing, which is said to
prevent the taking of cold and the recommendation of which is carried
very far by the ordinary physicians in default of any real assistance.
Though they are a burden to the patient, we should wait until there is
a visible improvement effected by the antipsorics which remove the
tendency to taking cold, and until the warmer season comes. With
patients who are very weakly, he should in the beginning change to
cotton shirts which rub and heat the skin less, before requiring
patients to put linen underclothing on their skin.—–
[*]
This may well be pardoned with journeymen and beginners: but when
they assume to boast of this noviceship and declare in public
journals and books that the incidental use of blood-letting and
leeches is indispensable, yea, that it is more essentially
homœopathic, they become ridiculous and are to be pitied as tyros
and as laboring under delusion; and their patients also are to be
pitied. Is it laziness or a haughty preference for their old
(although ruinous) allopathic routine, or is it lack of love for
their fellowman which prevents a deeper entering into true,
beneficent Homœopathy and an elevation into the troublesome but
correct and useful selection of the remedy homœopathically specific
in every case, and into that mastery of Homœopathy now no more
rare?For many easily perceived
reasons, but especially in order that his delicate doses of medicine
may not be interfered with in their action, the homœopathic physician
can not in his antipsoric treatment allow the intermediate use of any
hitherto customary domestic remedy, no perfumery of any kind, no
fragrant extracts, no smelling-salts, no Baldwin tea, or any other
herb teas, no peppermint confection, no spiced confections or
anise-sugar or stomach drops, or liqueurs, no Iceland-moss, or spiced
chocolate, no spice-drops, tooth-tinctures or tooth-powders of the
ordinary kinds, nor any of the other articles of luxury.So-called warm and hot baths
for the sake of cleanliness, to which spoiled patients are usually
very much attached, are not to be allowed, as they never fail to
disturb the health; nor are they needed, as a quick washing of a part
or of the whole of the body with lukewarm soap-water fully serves the
purpose without doing any injury.* * * * *
At the end of these
directions for treating chronic diseases, I recommended, in the first
edition, the lightest electric sparks as an adjuvant for quickening
parts that have been for a long time paralyzed and without sensation,
these to be used besides the antipsoric treatment. I am sorry for this
advice, and take it back, as experience has taught me, that this
prescription has nowhere been followed strictly, but that larger
electric sparks have always been used to the detriment of patients;
and yet these larger sparks have been asserted to be very small. I,
therefore, now advise against this so easily abused remedy,
especially, as we can easily remove this appearance of enantiopathic
assistance; for there is an efficient homœopathic local assistance
for paralyzed parts or such as are without sensation. This is found in
cold water [*] locally
applied (at 54° Fahrenheit) from mountain-springs and deep wells;
either by pouring on these parts for one, two or three minutes, or by
douche-baths over the whole body of one to five minutes duration, more
rarely or more frequently, even daily or oftener according to the
circumstances, together with the appropriate, internal, antipsoric
treatment, sufficient exercise in the open air, and judicious diet.—–
[*]
Water of this and a lower temperature has
the primary power of depriving the parts of the living body partly
of sensation and partly of motion, in such cases it therefore gives
local homœopathic assistance.THE
MEDICINES.The medicines which have been
found most suitable and excellent in chronic diseases so far, I shall
present in the following part according to their pure action on the
human body, as well those used in the treatment of the diseases of
psoric origin, as those used in syphilis and in the figwart-disease.That we need far fewer
remedies to combat the latter than the psora can not with any thinking
man form an argument against the chronic miasmatic nature of the
latter and still less against the fact that it is the common source of
the other chronic diseases.The psora, a most ancient
miasmatic disease, in propagating itself for many thousands of years
through several millions of human organisms, of which each one had its
own peculiar constitution and was exposed to very varied influences,
was able to modify itself to such a degree as to cause that incredible
variety of ailments which we see in the innumerable chronic patients,
with whom the external symptom (which acts vicariously for the
internal malady), i.e. the more or
less extensive eruption of itch, has been driven away from the skin by
a fatal art, or in whom it has disappeared of itself from the skin
through some other violent incident.Hence it seems to have come
to pass that this half-spiritual miasma, which like a parasite seeks
to inroot its hostile life in the human organism and to continue its
life there, could develop itself in so many ways in the many thousands
of years, so that it has even caused to spring forth and has born
modified offshoots with characteristic properties, which do not indeed
deny their descent from their stock (the common psora) but,
nevertheless, differ from one another considerably by some
peculiarities. These changes are due in some part to the varying
physical peculiarities and climatic differences of the dwelling-places
of men afflicted with the psora, [*]
and in part are moulded by their varying modes of life, e.g. children
in the corrupt city air develop rachitis, spina
ventosa, softening of the bones, curvatures, cancer of late bones,
tinea capitis, scrofula, ringworm; adults exhibit nervous
debility, nervous irritability, gout of the joints, etc. And so also
the other great varieties in the mode of living and in the occupations
of men with their inherited bodily constitutions give to the psoric
diseases so many modifications, that it may easily be understood, that
more numerous and more varied remedies are needed for the extirpation
of all these modifications of the psora (antipsoric remedies).—–
[*]
E.g. the Sibbens
or Rade-Syge commonly found in
Norway and in the northwest of Scotland; the Pellagra
in Lombardy; the plica polonica
(Koltun, Trichiasis) in Poland and Carinthia, the tumorous leprosy
in Surinam; the raspberry-like excrescences (Frambösia) in Guinea
called yaws and in America pian;
the exhaustive fever in Hungary called Tsömör,
the exhausting malady of Virginia (asthenia
Virginensium), the human degeneration in the deep Alpine
villages called cretin, the goitre
in the deep valleys and at their entrances, etc.I have often been asked by
what signs a substance may beforehand be recognized as antipsoric? But
there can be no such external visible marks in them; nevertheless
while proving several powerful substances as to their pure effects on
the healthy body, several of them by the complaints they caused showed
me their extraordinary and manifest suitableness for homœopathic aid
in the symptoms of clearly defined psoric diseases. Some traces of
their qualities leading in this direction gave me in advance some hint
as to their probable usefulness; e.g.
the efficacy of the herb Lycopodium,
much praised in Poland for the plica polonia
pointed me to the use of the pollen of lycopodium in similar psoric
ailments. The circumstance that some hæmorrhages have been arrested
by large doses of salt was another hint. So was the usefulness of
Guaiacum, Sarsaparilla and Mezereum, even in ancient times where
venereal diseases could not be healed by any amount of mercury unless
one or the other of these herbs had first removed the psora
complicated with it.As a rule it was developed
from their pure symptoms, that most of the earths, alkalies and acids,
as well as the neutral salts composed of them, together with several
of the metals cannot be dispensed with in curing the almost
innumerable symptoms of psora. The similarity in nature of the leading
antipsoric, sulphur, to phosphorus and other combustible substances
from the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms led to the use of the
latter, and some animal substances naturally followed them by analogy,
in agreement with experience.Still only those remedies
have been acknowledged as antipsoric whose pure effects on the human
health gave a clear indication of their homœopathic use in diseases
manifestly psoric, confessedly due to infection; so that, with an
enlargement of our knowledge of their proper, pure medicinal effects,
in time it may be found necessary to include some of our other
medicines among the antipsoric remedies; although even now we can with
certainty cure, with the antipsorics now recognized, nearly all
non-venereal (psoric) chronic diseases, if the patients have not been
loaded down and spoiled through allopathic mismanagement with severe
medicine-diseases, and when their vital force has not been depressed
too low, or very unfavorable external circumstances make the cure
impossible. Nevertheless, it need not be specially stated that the
other proved, homœopathic medicines, not excepting mercury,
cannot be dispensed with in certain states of the psoric diseases.* * * * *
Homœopathy, by a certain
treatment of the crude medicinal substances, which had not been
invented before its foundation and development, advances them into the
state of progressive and high development of their indwelling forces,
in order that it may then use them in curing in the most perfect
manner. Some of these medicines in their crude state seem to have a
very imperfect, insignificant medicinal action (e.g.
common salt and the pollen of lycopodium). Others (e.g.
gold, quartz, alumina) seem to have none at all, but all of them
become highly curative by the preparation peculiar to Homœopathy.
Other substances, on the other hand, in their crude state are, even in
the smallest quantities, so violent in their effects that if they
touch the animal fibre, they act upon it in a corroding and
destructive manner (e.g. arsenic
and corrosive sublimate) and these medicines are rendered by the same
preparation peculiar to Homœopathy not only mild in their effects,
but also incredibly developed in their medicinal powers.The changes which take place
in material substances, especially in medicinal ones, through
long-continued trituration with a non-medicinal powder, or when
dissolved, through a long-continued shaking with a non-medicinal
fluid, are so incredible, that they approach the miraculous, and it is
a cause of joy that the discovery of these wonderful changes belongs
to Homœopathy.Not only, as shown elsewhere,
do these medicinal substances thereby develop their powers in a
prodigious degree, but they also change their physico-chemical
demeanor in such a way, that if no one before could ever perceive in
their crude form any solubility in alcohol or water, after this
peculiar transmutation they become wholly soluble in water as well as
in alcohol -a discovery invaluable to the healing art.The brown-black juice of the
marine animal Sepia, which was
formerly only used for drawing and painting, is in its crude state
soluble only in water, not in alcohol; but by such a trituration it
becomes soluble also in alcohol.The yellow Petroleum only
allows something to be extracted from it through alcohol when it is
adulterated with ethereal vegetable oil; but in its pure state while
crude it is soluble neither in water nor in alcohol (nor in ether). By
trituration it becomes soluble in both substances.So also the Pollen
of lycopodium floats on alcohol and on water, without
either of them showing any action upon it – the crude lycopodium is
tasteless and inactive when it enters the human stomach; but when
changed in a similar manner through trituration it is not only
perfectly soluble in either fluid, but has also developed such
extraordinary medicinal powers, that great care must be taken in its
medicinal use.Who ever found marble or
oyster-shells soluble in pure water or in alcohol? But this mild lime
becomes perfectly soluble in either, by means of this mode of
preparation; the same is the case with baryta
and magnesia and these substances
then exhibit astonishing medicinal powers.Least of all will anyone
ascribe solubility in water and alcohol to quartz, to rock-crystal
(many crystals of which have contained enclosed in them drops of water
for thousands of years unchanged), or to sand; nor would any one
ascribe to them medicinal power, and yet by the dynamization
(potentizing) [*]
peculiar to Homœopathy, by melting silica with an alkaline
salt, and then precipitating it from this glass, it not only becomes
soluble without any residuum in water and in alcohol, but also then
shows prodigious medicinal powers.What can I say of the pure
metals and of their sulphurets, but that all of them, without any
exception become by this treatment equally soluble in water and in
alcohol, and every one of them develops the medicinal virtue peculiar
to it in the purest, simplest manner and in an incredibly high degree?But the chemical medicinal
substances thus prepared now also stand above the chemical
laws.A dose of phosphorus,
potentized highly in a similar manner, may lie in its paper envelope
in the desk, and, nevertheless, when taken after a whole year’s
interval, it will still show its full medicinal power; not that of
phosphoric acid, but that of the unchanged, uncombined phosphorus
itself. So that no neutralization takes place in this its elevated,
and as it were, glorified state.The medicinal effects of
natrum carbonicum, of ammonium carbonicum, of baryta, of lime, and of
magnesia, in this highly potentized state, when a dose of one of them
has been taken, is not neutralized like basic substances taken in a
crude form by a drop of vinegar taken afterwards; their medicinal
effect being neither changed nor destroyed.—–
[*]
In its crude condition and without this preparation quartz and
pebbles do not seem to allow a development of their medicinal powers
by trituration and therefore it is that the triturating of various
medicine with the indifferent sugar of milk in the porcelain
triturating bowl seems to impart to them no admixture of silicea
as some anxious purists have vainly feared.Nitric acid when thus given
in its highly potentized state in which it is serviceable for
homœopathic medicinal use, is not changed by a little crude lime or
crude soda given after it, as to its strong well defined medicinal
action; therefore it is not neutralized.In this preparation,
peculiar to Homœopathy, we take one grain in powder of any of the
substances treated of in the six volumes of Materia Medica Pura, [*]
and especially those of the antipsoric substances [**]
following below, i.e., of silica,
carbonate of baryta, carbonate of lime, carbonate of soda and sal
ammoniac, carbonate of magnesia, vegetable charcoal, animal charcoal,
graphites, sulphur, crude antimony, metallic antimony, gold, platina,
iron, zinc, copper, silver, tin. The lumps of the metals which have
not yet been beaten out into foil, are rubbed off on a fine, hard
whetstone under water, some of them, as iron, under alcohol; of
mercury in the liquid form one grain is taken, of petroleum one drop
instead of a grain, etc. This is first put on about one-third of 100
grains of pulverized sugar of milk, and placed in an unglazed
porcelain mortar, or in one from which the glaze has been first rubbed
off with wet sand; the medicine and the sugar of milk are then mixed
for a moment with a porcelain spatula, and the mixture is triturated
with some force for six minutes, the triturated substance is then for
four minutes scraped from the mortar and from the porcelain pestle, [***]
which is also unglazed, or has had its glazing rubbed off with wet
sand, so that the trituration may be homogeneously mixed. After this
has been thus scraped together, it is triturated again without any
addition for another six minutes with equal force. After scraping
together again from the bottom and the sides for four minutes this
triturate (for which the first third of the 100 grains had been used),
the second third of the sugar of milk is now added, both are mixed
together with the spatula for a moment, triturated again with like
force for six minutes; then having again scraped the triturate for
four minutes, it is triturated a second time (without addition) for
six minutes more, and after scraping it together for another four
minutes it is mixed with the last third of the powdered sugar of milk
by stirring it around with the spatula, and then the whole mixture is
again triturated for six minutes, scraped for four minutes, and a
second and last time triturated for six minutes; then it is all
scraped together and the powder is preserved in a well stoppered
bottle with the name of the substance and the signature 100 because it
is potentized one hundred fold. [****]—–
[*]
Vegetable substances which can only be procured dry, e.g.,
cinchona bark, ipecacuanha, etc., are prepared by the same kind of
trituration and will completely dissolve when potentized a million
fold, not less, with their peculiar powers, in water and alcohol,
and may then be preserved as medicines far more easily than the
easily spoiled alcoholic tinctures. Of the juiceless vegetable
substances, such as oleander, thuja, the bark of mezereum, etc., we
may, without making a mistake, take of each about one and a half
grains of the fresh leaves, bark, root, etc., without any further
preparation, and triturate the same three times with 100 grains of
sugar of milk to the millionfold powder trituration. A grain of this
dissolved in alcohol and water may be developed in the diluting
vials with alcohol to the necessary degree of potency of their
powers by giving for each potency two succussive strokes. Also with
the freshly expressed juices of the herbs it is best to at once put
one drop of the same with as much sugar of milk as is taken for the
preparation of the other medicines, so as to triturate it to the
millionfold powder attenuation, and then a grain of this attenuation
is dissolved in equal parts of water and alcohol, and must be
potentized to a further dynamization through the twenty-seven
diluting vials by means of two succussive strokes. The fresh juices
thus seem to acquire more of dynamization, as experience teaches me,
than when the juice without any preparation by triturating is merely
diluted in thirty vials of alcohol and potentized each time with two
succussive strokes.[**]
Even phosphorus which is so easily oxidized by exposure to the air
is potentized in a similar manner, and thus rendered soluble in
these two liquids, and is thus prepared as a homœopathic medicine;
but in this case some precautions are used, which will be found
below.[***]
That after the completion of every three hours’ trituration
of a medicinal substance, the mortar, pestle and spatula are to be
several times scalded with boiling water, being after every scalding
wiped quite dry and clean, I presuppose as indispensable, so that no
idea of spoiling any medicine that may be triturated in it in
feature may be entertained. If the further precaution is used of
exposure mortar, pestle and spatula to a heat approaching red heat,
this will dissipate every thought that any least rest of the
medicine last triturated can cling to them and thus even the most
scrupulous mind will be satisfied.[****]
Only phosphorus needs some modification in the preparation (if the
first attenuation to the 100th degree. Here the hundred grains of
sugar of milk are at once put into the triturating bowl and, with
about twelve drops of water they are stirred by means of the wet
pestle into a thickish pap; one grain of phosphorus is then cut into
numerous pieces, say twelve, and kneaded in with the moist pestle
and rather stamped than rubbed into it, while the mass which often
clings to the pestle is as often scraped into the mortar. Thus the
little crumbs of phosphorus are rubbed to little invisible dust
particles in the, thick pap of sugar of milk even in the first two
periods of six minutes each, without the appearance of the least
spark. During the third period of six minutes the stamping may pass
over into rubbing, because the mass is then approaching the form of
powder. During the succeeding three periods of six minutes each
trituration is carried on only with a moderate force, and after
every six minutes the powder is scraped from the mortar and the
pestle for several minutes, which is done easily, as this powder
does not adhere tenaciously. After the sixth period of trituration
the powder, when standing exposed to the air in the dark, is only
feebly luminous, and has but a slight odor. It is put into a
well-stoppered vial and marked phosphorus 1/100, the other two
triturations 1/10000, and 1/mill. are prepared like those from other
dry medicinal substances.To potentize the substance to
the ten thousandth attenuation, one grain of the powder last mentioned
as being the one hundredth is taken with one-third of 100 grains of
fresh sugar of milk, stirred in the mortar with a spatula and treated
as above, so that every third is triturated twice for six minutes at a
time, and after every trituration is scraped together (for about four
minutes), before the second third of the sugar of milk is added and
after this has been similarly treated the last third of sugar of milk
is stirred into it and again similarly triturated twice for six
minutes at a time, when it is scraped together, put in a stoppered
vial with the signature 1/10000 as it contains the medicine potentized
to the ten thousandth attenuation. [*]
The same is done with one grain of this powder (marked 1/10000) in
order to bring it to I, and thus to attenuate it to the millionfold
potency.In order to produce a
homogeneity in the preparation of the homœopathic and especially the
antipsoric remedies, at least in the form of powders, I advise the
reducing of medicines only to this millionth potency, no more and no
less and to prepare from this the solutions and the necessary
potencies of these solutions; this has been my own custom.The trituration should be
done with force, yet only with so much force that the sugar of milk
may not be pressed too firmly to the mortar, but may be scraped up in
four minutes.Now in preparing the
solutions [**] from this,
and in bringing the medicines thus potentized one millionfold, into
the fluid form, (so that their dynamization may be still further
continued), we are aided by the property of all medicinal substances,
that, when brought to the potency I, they are soluble in water and
alcohol; this property is still unknown to chemistry.—–
[*]
Thus it will be seen that every attenuation (that to 1/100, that to
1/10000, and also the third to 1/1000000 or I) is prepared by six
times triturating for six minutes and six times scraping together
for four minutes each time. Thus each one requires one hour.[**]
In the beginning I used to give a small part of a grain of the
powders potentized to the 1/10000 or the I degree by trituration, as
a dose. But since a small part of a grain
is too indefinite a quantity, and since Homœopathy must avoid all
indefiniteness and inexactness as much as possible, the discovery
that all medicines may be changed from potentized medicinal powders
into fluids with which a definite number of pellets may be moistened
for a dose, was of great value to me. From liquids the higher
potencies may also be easily prepared.
Copyright © Médi-T
2006