III. Or the new disease, after having long acted on the organism,
at length joins the old one that is dissimilar to it, and forms with it a complex disease,
so that each of them occupies a particular locality in the organism, namely, the organs
peculiarly adapted for it, and, as it were, only the place specially belonging to it,
while it leaves the rest to the other disease that is dissimilar to it. Thus a syphilitic
patient may become psoric, and vice versa. As two disease dissimilar to each other, they
cannot remove, cannot cure one another. At first the venereal symptoms are kept in
abeyance and suspended when the psoric eruption begins to appear; in course of time,
however (as the syphilis is at least as strong as the psora), the two join together,1 that is, each involves those parts of the organism only which are most
adapted for it, and the patient is thereby rendered more diseased and more difficult to
cure.When two dissimilar acute infectious diseases meet, as, for example,
smallpox and measles, the one usually suspends the other, as has been before observed; yet
there have also been severe epidemics of this kind, where, in rare cases, two dissimilar
acute diseases occurred simultaneously in one and the same body, and for a short time
combined, as it were, with each other. During an epidemic, in which smallpox and measles
were prevalent at the same time, among three hundred cases (in which these diseases
avoided or suspended one another, and measles attacked patients twenty days after the
smallpox broke out, the smallpox, however, from seventeen to eighteen days after the
appearance of the measles, so that the first disease had previously completed its regular
course) there was yet one single case in which P. Russell2 met with
both these dissimilar diseases in one person at the same time. Rainey3
witnessed the simultaneous occurrence of smallpox and measles in two girls. J. Maurice4, in his whole practice, only observed two such cases. Similar cases are
to be found in Ettmuller’s5 works, and in the writings of a few
others.Zencker6 saw cow-pox run its regular course along
with measles and along with purpura.The cow-pox went on its course undisturbed during a mercurial treatment
for syphilis, as Jenner saw.1
From careful experiments and cures of complex diseases of this
kind, I am now firmly convinced that no real amalgamation of the two takes place, but that
in such cases the one exists in the organism besides the other only, each in pairs that
are adapted for it, and their cure will be completely effected by a judicious alternation
of the best mercurial preparation, with the remedies specific for the psora, each given in
the most suitable dose and form.2
Vide Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Med. and
Chir. Knowledge, ii.3
In Edinb. Med and Phys. Journ., 1805.
4
In Med. and Phys. Journ., 1805.
5
Opera, ii, p.i, cap. 10.
6
In hufeland’s Journal, xvii.
§ 41 Fifth Edition
Much more frequent than the natural diseases associating with and
complicating one another in the same body are the morbid complication resulting from the
art of the ordinary practitioner, which the inappropriate medical treatment (the
allopathic method) is apt to produce by the long-continued employment of unsuitable drugs.
To the natural disease, which it is proposed to cure, there are then added, by the
constant repetition of the unsuitable medical agent, the new, often very tedious, morbid
conditions which might be anticipated from the peculiar powers of the drug; these
gradually coalesce with and complicate the chronic malady which is dissimilar to them
(which they were unable to cure by similarity of action, that is, homoeopathically),
adding to the old disease a new, dissimilar, artificial malady of a chronic nature, and
thus give the patient a double in place of a single disease, that is to say, render him
much worse and more difficult to cure, often quite incurable. Many of the cases for which
advice is asked in medical journals, as also the records of other cases in medical
writings, attest the truth of this. Of a similar character are the frequent cases in which
the venereal chancrous disease, complicated especially with psora or with the venereal
chancrous disease, complicated especially with psora or with dyscrasia of condylomatous
gonorrhoea, is not cured by long-continued or frequently repeated treatment with large
doses of unsuitable mercurial preparations, but assumes its place in the organism beside
the chronic mercurial affection1 that has been in the meantime
gradually developed, and thus along with it often forms a hideous monster of complicated
disease (under the general name of masked venereal disease), which then, when not quite
incurable, can only be transformed into health with the greatest difficulty.1
For mercury, besides the morbid symptoms which by virtue of
similarity can cure the venereal disease homoeopathically, has among its effects many
others unlike those of syphilis, for instance, swelling and ulceration of bones, which, if
it be employed in large doses, causes new maladies and commit great ravages in the body,
especially when complicated with psora, as is so frequently the case.
§ 41 Sixth Edition
Much more frequent than the natural diseases associating with and
complicating one another in the same body are the morbid complication resulting from the
art of the ordinary practitioner, which the inappropriate medical treatment (the
allopathic method) is apt to produce by the long-continued employment of unsuitable drugs.
To the natural disease, which it is proposed to cure, there are then added, by the
constant repetition of the unsuitable medical agent, the new, often very tedious, morbid
conditions corresponding to the nature of this agent; these gradually coalesce with and
complicate the chronic malady which is dissimilar to them (which they were unable to cure
by similarity of action, that is, homoeopathically), adding to the old disease a new,
dissimilar, artificial malady of a chronic nature, and thus give the patient a double in
place of a single disease, that is to say, render him much worse and more difficult to
cure, often quite incurable. Many of the cases for which advice is asked in medical
journals, as also the records of other cases in medical writings, attest the truth of
this. Of a similar character are the frequent cases in which the venereal chancrous
disease, complicated especially with psora or with the venereal chancrous disease,
complicated especially with psora or with dyscrasia of condylomatous gonorrhoea, is not
cured by long-continued or frequently repeated treatment with large doses of unsuitable
mercurial preparations, but assumes its place in the organism beside the chronic mercurial
affection1 that has been in the meantime gradually developed, and
thus along with it often forms a hideous monster of complicated disease (under the general
name of masked venereal disease), which then, when not quite incurable, can only be
transformed into health with the greatest difficulty.1
For mercury, besides the morbid symptoms which by virtue of
similarity can cure the venereal disease homoeopathically, has among its effects many
others unlike those of syphilis, for instance, swelling and ulceration of bones, which, if
it be employed in large doses, causes new maladies and commit great ravages in the body,
especially when complicated with psora, as is so frequently the case.
Nature herself permits, as has been stated, in some cases, the
simultaneous occurrence of two (indeed, of three) natural disease in one and the same
body. This complication, however, it must be remarked, happens only in the case of two
dissimilar disease, which according to the eternal laws of nature do not remove, do not
annihilate and cannot cure one another, but, as it seems, both (or all three) remain, as
it were, separate in the organism, and each takes possession of the parts and systems
peculiarly appropriate to it, which, on account of the want of resemblance of these
maladies to each other, can very well happen without disparagement to the unity of life.
Totally different, however, is the result when two similar disease
meet together in the organism, that is to say, when to the disease already present a
stronger similar one is added. In such cases we see how a cure can be effected by the
operations of nature, and we get a lesson as to how man ought to cure.
§ 44 Fifth Edition
Two diseases similar to each other can neither (as is asserted of
dissimilar disease in I) repel one another, nor (as has been shown of dissimilar disease
in II) suspend on another, so that the old one shall return after the new one has run its
course; and just as little can two similar disease (as has been demonstrated in III
respecting dissimilar affections) exist beside each other in the same organism, or
together form a double complex disease.
§ 44 Sixth Edition
Similar diseases can neither (as is asserted of dissimilar disease in
I) repel one another, nor (as has been shown of dissimilar disease in II) suspend on
another, so that the old one shall return after the new one has run its course; and just
as little can two similar disease (as has been demonstrated in III respecting dissimilar
affections) exist beside each other in the same organism, or together form a double
complex disease.
§ 45 Fifth Edition
No! Two diseases, differing, it is true, in kind1
but very similar in their phenomena and effects and in the sufferings and symptoms they
severally produce, invariably annihilate one another whenever they meet together in the
organism; the stronger disease namely, annihilates the weaker, and that for this simple
reason, because the stronger morbific power when it invades the system, by reason of its
similarity of action involves precisely the same part of the organism that were previously
affected by the weaker morbid irritation, which, consequently, can no longer act on these
parts, but is extinguished2, or (in other words) because, whenever
the vital force, deranged by the primary disease, is more strongly attacked by the new,
very similar, but stronger dynamic morbific power, it therefore now remains affected by
the latter alone, whereby the original, similar but weaker disease must, as a mere dynamic
power without material substratum, cease to exercise any further morbid influence on the
vital force, consequently it must cease to exist.1
Vide, supra, § 26, note.
2
Just as the image of a lamp’s flame is rapidly overpowered and
effaced from our retina by the stronger sunbeam impinging on the eye.
§ 45 Sixth Edition
No! Two diseases, differing, it is true, in kind1
but very similar in their phenomena and effects and in the sufferings and symptoms they
severally produce, invariably annihilate one another whenever they meet together in the
organism; the stronger disease namely, annihilates the weaker, and that for this simple
reason, because the stronger morbific power when it invades the system, by reason of its
similarity of action involves precisely the same part of the organism that were previously
affected by the weaker morbid irritation, which, consequently, can no longer act on these
parts, but is extinguished2, or (in other words), the new similar
but stronger morbific potency controls the feelings of the patient and hence the life
principle on account of its peculiarity, can no longer feel the weaker similar which
becomes extinguished – exists no longer – for it was never anything material, but a
dynamic – spirit-like – (conceptual) affection. The life principle henceforth is affected
only and this but temporarily by the new, similar but stronger morbific potency.1
Vide, supra, § 26, note.
2
Just as the image of a lamp’s flame is rapidly overpowered and
effaced from our retina by the stronger sunbeam impinging on the eye.
Many examples might be adduced of disease which, in the course of
nature, have been homoeopathically cured by other diseases presenting similar symptoms,
were it not necessary, as our object is to speak about something determinate and
indubitable, to confine our attention solely to those (few) disease which are invariably
the same, arise from a fixed miasm, and hence merit a distinct name.Among these the smallpox, so dreaded on account of the great number of
its serious symptoms, occupies a prominent position, and it has removed and cured a number
of maladies with similar symptoms.How frequently does smallpox produce violent ophthalmia, sometimes even
causing blindness! And see! By its inoculation Dezoteux1 cured a
chronic ophthalmia permanently, and Leroy2 another.An amaurosis of two years’ duration, consequent on suppressed scald
head, was perfectly cured by it, according to Klein.3How often does smallpox cause deafness and dyspnoea! And both these
chronic diseases it removed on reaching its acme, as J. Fr. Closs4
observed.Swelling of the testicle, even of a very severe character, is a
frequent symptom of small-pox, and on this account it was enabled, as Klein5
observed, to cure, by virtue of similarity, a large hard swelling of the left testicle,
consequently on a bruise. And another observer6 saw a similar
swelling of the testicle cured by it.Among the troublesome symptoms of small-pox is a dysenteric state of
the bowels; and it subdued, as Fr. Wendt7 observed, a case of
dysentery, as a similar morbific agent.Smallpox coming on after vaccination, as well on account of its greater
strength as its great similarity, at once removes entirely the cow-pox homoeopathically,
and does not permit it to come to maturity; but, on the other hand, the cow-pox when near
maturity does, on account of its great similarity, homoeopathically diminish very much the
supervening smallpox and make it much milder8, as Muhry9 and many others testify.The inoculated cow-pox, whose lymph, besides the protective matter,
contains the contagion of a general cutaneous eruption of another nature, consisting of
usually small, dry (rarely large, pustular) pimples, resting on a small red areola,
frequently conjoined with round red cutaneous spots and often accompanied by the most
violent itching, which rash appears in not a few children several days before, more
frequently, however, after the red areola of the cow-pock, and goes off in a few days,
leaving behind small, red, hard spots on the skin; – the inoculated cow-pox, I say, after
it has taken, cures perfectly and permanently, in a homoeopathic manner, by the similarity
of this accessory miasm, analogous cutaneous eruptions of children, often of very long
standing and of a very troublesome character, as a number of observers assert.10The cow-pox, a peculiar symptom of which is to cause tumefaction of the
arm11, cured, after it broke out, a swollen half-paralyzed arm.12The fever accompanying cow-pox, which occurs at the time of the
production of the red areola, cured homoeopathically intermittent fever in two
individuals, as the younger Hardege13 reports, confirming what J.
Hunter14 had already observed, that two fevers (similar diseases)
cannot co-exist in the same body.The measles bear a strong resemblance in the character of its fever and
cough to the whooping-cough, and hence it was that Bosquillon15
noticed, in an epidemic where both these affections prevailed, that many children who then
took measles remained free from whooping-cough during that epidemic. They would all have
been protected from, and rendered incapable of being infected by, the whooping-cough in
that and all subsequent epidemics, by the measles, if the whooping-cough were not a
disease that has only a partial similarity to the measles, that is to say, if it had also
a cutaneous eruption similar to what the latter possesses. As it is, however, the measles
can but preserve a large number from whooping-cough homoeopathically, and that only in the
epidemic prevailing at the time.If, however, the measles come in contact with a disease resembling it
in its chief symptom, the eruption, it can indisputably remove, and effect a homoeopathic
cure of the latter. Thus a chronic herpetic eruption was entirely and permanently
(homoeopathically) cured16 by the breaking out of the measles, as
Kortum17 observed. An excessively burning miliary rash on the face,
neck, and arms, that had lasted six years, and was aggravated by every change of weather,
on the invasion of measles assumed the form of a swelling of the surface of the skin;
after the measles had run its course the exanthema was cured, and returned no more.181 Traite de l’inoculation, p.189.
2
Heilkunde fur Mutter, p.384.
3
Interpres clinicus, p.293.
4
Neue Heilart der Kinderpocken. Ulm, 1769, p.68; and Specim.,
obs. No. 18.5
Op. cit.
6
Nov. Act. Nat. cur., vol, I, obs. 22.
7
Nachricht Von dem Krankeninstitut zu Erlangen, 1783.
8
A new footnote is added here in the Sixth Edition, as
follows:This seems to be the reason for this beneficial remarkable fact namely
that since the general distribution of Janner’s Cow-pox vaccination, human small-pox never
again appeared as epidemically or virulently as 40-45 years before when one city visited
lost at least one-half and often three-quarters of its children by death of this miserable
pestilence.9
Willian, Ueber die Kuhpockenimpfung, aus dem Engl., mit
Zusatzen G.P. Muhry, Gottingen, 1808.10
Especially Clavier, Hurel and Desmormeaux, in the Bulletin
des sciencs medicales, publie par les membres de l’ Eure, 1808, also in the Journal de
medicine continue, vol. xv, p.206.11
Balhorn, in Hufeland’s Journal, 10, ii.
12
Stevenson, in Duncan’s Annals of Medicine, lustr. 2, vol. I,
pt. 2, No. 9.13
In Hufeland’s Journal, xxiii.
14
On the Veneral Disease, p.4.
15
Cullen’s Elements of Practical Medicine, pt. 2, I, 3, ch.
vii.16
Or at least that symptom was removed.
17
In Hufeland’s Journal, xx, 3, p.50.
18
Rau, Ueber d. Werth des hom. Heidelb., 1824, p.85.
Nothing could teach the physician in a plainer and more convincing
manner than the above what kind of artificial morbific agent (medicine) he ought to choose
in order to cure in a sure, rapid and permanent manner, conformably with the process that
takes place in nature.
Neither in the course of nature, as we see from all the above
examples, nor by the physician’s art, can an existing affection or malady in any one
instance be removed by a dissimilar morbific agent, be it ever so strong, but solely by
one that is similar in symptoms and is somewhat stronger, according to eternal,
irrevocable laws of nature, which have not hitherto been recognized.
We should have been able to meet with many more real, natural
homoeopathic cures of this kind if, on the one hand, the attention of observers had been
more directed to them, and, on the other hand, if nature had not been so deficient in
helpful homoeopathic diseases.
Mighty Nature herself has, as we see, at her command, as
instruments for effecting homoeopathic cures, little besides the miasmatic diseases of
constant character, (the itch) measles and smallpox1, morbific
agents which2, as remedies, are either more dangerous to life and
more to be dreaded than the disease they are to cure, they themselves require curing, in
order to be eradicated in their turn – both circumstances that make their employment, as
homoeopathic remedies, difficult, uncertain and dangerous. And how few diseases are there
to which man is subject that find their similar remedy in smallpox, measles or itch!
Hence, in the course of nature, very few maladies can be cured by these uncertain and
hazardous homoeopathic remedies, and the cure by their instrumentality is also attended
with danger and much difficulty, for this reason that the doses of these morbific powers
cannot be diminished according to circumstances, as doses of medicine can; but the patient
afflicted with an analogous malady of long standing must be subjected to the entire
dangerous and tedious disease, to the entire disease of smallpox, measles (or itch), which
in its turn has to be cured. And yet, as is seen, we can point to some striking
homoeopathic cures effected by this lucky concurrence, all so many incontrovertible proofs
of the great, the sole therapeutic law of nature that obtains in them: Cure by symptoms
similarity!1
And the exanthematous contagious principle present in the
cow-pox lymph.2
Namely, small-pox and measles.
This therapeutic law is rendered obvious to all intelligent minds
by these instances, and they are amply sufficient for this end. But, on the other hand,
see what advantages man has over crude Nature in her happy-go-lucky operations. How many
thousands more of homoeopathic morbific agents has not man at his disposal for the relief
of his suffering fellow-creatures in the medicinal substances universally distributed
throughout creation! In them he has producers of disease of all possible varieties of
action, for all the innumerable, for all conceivable and inconceivable natural diseases,
to which they can render homoeopathic aid – morbific agents (medicinal substances), whose
power, when their remedial employment is completed, being overcome by the vital force,
disappears spontaneously without requiring a second course of treatment for its
extirpation, like the itch – artificial morbific agents, which the physician can
attenuate, subdivide and potentize almost to an infinite extent, and the dose of which he
can diminish to such a degree that they shall remain only slightly stronger than the
similar natural disease they are employed to cure; so that in this incomparable method of
cure, there is no necessity for any violent attack upon the organism for the eradication
of even an inveterate disease of old standing; the cure by this method takes place by only
a gentle, imperceptible and yet often rapid transition from the tormenting natural disease
to the desired state of permanent health.
§ 52 Fifth Edition
Surely no intelligent physician, after these examples as clear as
daylight, can still go on in the old ordinary system of medicine, attacking the body, as
has hitherto been done, in its least diseased parts with (allopathic) medicines that have
no direct pathological (homoeopathic) relation to the disease to be cured, with
purgatives, counter-irritants, derivatives, etc.1, and thus at a
sacrifice of the patient’s strength, inducing a morbid state quite heterogeneous and
dissimilar to the original one, to the ruin of his constitution, by large doses of
mixtures of medicines generally of unknown qualities, the employment of which can have no
other result, as is demonstrated by the eternal laws of nature in the above and all other
cases in the world in which a dissimilar disease is added to the other in the human
organism, for a cure is never thereby effected in disease, but an aggravation is the
invariable consequence, – therefore it can have no other result than that either (because,
according to the process of nature described in I, the older disease in the body repels
the dissimilar one wherewith the patient is assailed) the natural disease remains as it
was, under mild allopathic treatment, be it ever so long continued, the patient being
thereby weakened; or (because, according to the process of nature described in II, the new
and stronger disease merely obscures and suspends for a short time the original weaker
dissimilar one), by the violent attack on the body with strong allopathic drugs, the
original disease seems to yield for a time, to return in at least all its former strength;
or (because, according to the process of nature described in III, two dissimilar diseases,
when both are of a chronic character and of equal strength, take up a position when beside
one another in the organism and complicate each other) in those cases in which the
physician employs for a long time morbific agents opposite and dissimilar to the natural
chronic disease and allopathic medicines in large doses, such allopathic treatment,
without ever being able to remove and to cure the original (dissimilar) chronic disease,
only develops new artificial diseases beside it; and, as daily experience shows, only
renders the patient much worse and more incurable than before.1
Vide supra in the Introduction: A review of the Therapeutics,
etc., and my book, Die Alloopathie, ein Wort der Warnung fur Kranke jeder Art, Leipzig,
bei Baumgartner (translated in Hahnemann’s Lesser Writings.)
§ 52 Sixth Edition
There are but two principle methods of cure: the one based only on
accurate observation of nature, on careful experimentation and pure experience, the
homoeopathic (before we never designedly used) and a second which does not do this, the
heteropathic or allopathic. Each opposes the other, and only he who does not know either
can hold the delusion that they can ever approach each other or even become united, or to
make himself so ridiculous as to practice at one time homoeopathically at another
allopathically, according to the pleasure of the patient; a practice which may be called
criminal treason against divine homoeopathy.
§ 53 Fifth Edition
True, mild cures take place, as we see, only in a homoeopathic way – a
way which, as we have also shown above (§§ 7-25) in a different manner, by experience
and deductions, is also the true and only one whereby diseases may be most surely, rapidly
and permanently extinguished by art; for this mode of cure is founded on an eternal,
infallible law of nature.
§ 53 Sixth Edition
The true mild cures take place only according to the homoeopathic
method, which, as we have found (§§ 7-25) by experience and deduction, is unquestionably
the proper one by which through art the quickest, most certain and most permanent cures
are obtained since this healing art rests upon an eternal infallible law of nature.The pure homoeopathic healing art is the only correct method, the one
possible to human art, the straightest way to cure, as certain as that there is but one
straight line between two given points.
§ 54 Fifth Edition
This, the homoeopathic way, must, moreover, as observed above (§§
43-49) be the only proper one, because, of the three possible modes of employing medicines
in diseases, it is the only direct way to a mild, sure, permanent cure without doing
injury in another direction, and without weakening the patient. The pure homoeopathic mode
of cure is the only proper way, the only direct way, the only way possible to human skill,
as certainly as only one straight line can be drawn betwixt two given points.
§ 54 Sixth Edition
The allopathic method of treatment utilized many things against
disease, but usually only improper ones (alloea) and ruled for ages in different forms
called systems. Every one of these, following each other from time to time and differing
greatly each from the other, honored itself with the name of Rational Medicine1.Every builder of such a system cherished the haughty estimation of
himself that he was able to penetrate into the inner nature of life of the healthy as well
as of the sick and clearly to recognize it and accordingly gave the prescription which
noxious matter2 should be banished from the sick man, and how to
banish it in order to restore him to health, all this according to empty assumptions and
arbitrary suppositions without honestly questioning nature and listening without prejudice
to the voice of experience. Diseases were held to be conditions that reappeared pretty
much in the same manner. Most systems gave, therefore, names to their imagined disease
pictures and classified them, every system differently. To medicines were ascribed actions
which were supposed to cure these abnormal conditions. (Hence the numerous text books on
Materia Medica.3)1
As if the establishment of a science, based only on
observation of nature and pure experiment and experience idle speculation and scholastic
vaporings could have a place.2
Up to the most recent times what is curable in sickness was
supposed to be material that had to be removed since no one could conceive of a dynamic
effect (§ 11 note) of morbific agencies, such as medicines exercise upon the life of the
animal organism.3
To fill the measure of self infatuation to overflowing here
were mixed (very learnedly) constantly more, indeed, many different medicines in so-called
prescriptions to be administered in frequent and large doses and thereby the precious,
easily-destroyed human life was endangered in the hands of these perverted ones.
Especially so with seton, venesection, emetics, purgatives, plasters, fontanelles and
cauterization.
§ 55 Fifth Edition
The second mode of employing medicines in diseases, the allopathic or
homoeopathic, which, without any pathological relation to what is actually diseased in the
body, attacks the parts most exempt from the disease, in order to draw away the disease
through them and thus to expel it, as is imagined, has hitherto been the most general
method. I have treated of it above in the Introduction1, and shall
not dwell longer on it.1
Review of the Therapeutics, etc.
§ 55 Sixth Edition
Soon, however, the public became convinced that the sufferings of the
sick increased and heightened with the introduction of every one of these systems and
methods of cure if followed exactly. Long ago these allopathic physicians would have been
left had it not been for the palliative relief obtained at times from empirically
discovered remedies whose almost instantaneous flattering action is apparent to the
patient and this to some extent served to keep up their credit.
§ 56 Fifth Edition
The third and only remaining method1 of employing
medicines in diseases, which, besides the other two just alluded to, is the only other
possible one, is the antipathic (enantiopathic) or palliative method, wherewith the
physician could hitherto appear to be most useful, and hoped most certainly to gain his
patient’s confidence by deluding him with momentary amelioration. But I shall now proceed
to show how inefficacious and how injurious this third and sole remaining way was, in
diseases of a not very rapid course. It is certainly the only one of the modes of
treatment adopted by the allopaths that had any manifest relation to a portion of the
sufferings caused by the natural disease; but what kind of relation? Of a truth the very
one (the exact contrary of the right one) that ought most to be avoided if we would not
delude and make a mockery of the patient affected with a chronic disease.1
A fourth mode of employing medicines in diseases has been
attempted to be created by means of Isopathy, as it is called – that is to say, a method
of curing a given disease by the same contagious particle that produces it. But even
granting this could be done, which would certainly be a valuable discovery, yet, after
all, seeing that the virus is given to the patient highly potentized, and thereby,
consequently, to a certain degree in an altered condition, the cure is effected only by
opposing a simillimum to a simillimum.
§ 56 Sixth Edition
By means of this palliative (antipathic, enantiopathic) method,
introduced according to Galen’s teaching Contraria contrariis for seventeen
centuries, the physicians hitherto could hope to win confidence while they deluded with
almost instantaneous amelioration. But how fundamentally unhelpful and hurtful this method
of treatment is (in diseases not running a rapid course) we shall see in what follows. It
is certainly the only one of the modes of treatment adopted by the allopaths that had any
manifest relation to a portion of the sufferings caused by the natural disease; but what
kind of relation? Of a truth the very one (the exact contrary of the right one) that ought
carefully to be avoided if we would not delude and make a mockery of the patient affected
with a chronic disease1.1
A third mode of employing medicines in diseases has been
attempted to be created by means of Isopathy, as it is called – that is to say, a method
of curing a given disease by the same contagious principle that produces it. But even
granting this could be done, yet, after all, seeing that the virus is given to the patient
highly potentized, and consequently, in an altered condition, the cure is effected only by
opposing a simillimum to a simillimum.To attempt to cure by means of the very same morbific potency (per
Idem) contradicts all normal human understanding and hence all experience. Those who first
brought Isopathy to notice, probably thought of the benefit which mankind received from
cowpox vaccination by which the vaccinated individual is protected against future cowpox
infection and as it were cured in advance. But both, cowpox and smallpox are only similar,
in no way the same disease. In many respects they differ, namely in the more rapid course
and mildness of cowpox and especially in this, that is never contagious to man by more
nearness. Universal vaccination put an end to all epidemics of that deadly fearful
smallpox to such an extent that the present generation does no longer possess a clear
conception of the former frightful smallpox plague.Moreover, in this way, undoubtedly, certain diseases peculiar to
animals may give us remedies and thus happily enlarge our stock of homoeopathic remedies.But to use a human morbific matter (a Psorin taken from the itch in
man) as a remedy for the same itch or for evils arisen therefrom is – ?Nothing can result from this but trouble and aggravation of the
disease.
In order to carry into practice this antipathic method, the ordinary
physician gives, for a single troublesome symptom from among the many other symptoms of
the disease which he passes by unheeded, a medicine concerning which it is known that it
produces the exact opposite of the morbid symptom sought to be subdued, from which,
agreeably to the fifteen – centuries – old traditional rule of the antiquated medical
school (contraria contrariis) he can expect the speediest (palliative) relief. He gives
large doses of opium for pains of all sorts, because this drug soon benumbs the
sensibility, and administers the same remedy for diarrhoeas, because it speedily puts a
stop to the peristaltic motion of the intestinal canal and makes it insensible; and also
for sleeplessness, because opium rapidly produces a stupefied, comatose sleep; he gives
purgatives when the patient has suffered long from constipation and costiveness; he causes
the burnt hand to be plunged into cold water, which, from its low degree of temperature,
seems instantaneously to remove the burning pain, as if by magic; he puts the patient who
complains of chilliness and deficiency of vital heat into warm baths, which warm him
immediately; he makes him who is suffering from prolonged debility drink wine, whereby he
is instantly enlivened and refreshed; and in like manner he employs other opposite
(antipathic) remedial means, but he has very few besides those just mentioned, as it is
only of very few substances that some peculiar (primary) action is known to the ordinary
medical school.
If, in estimating the value of this mode of employing medicines, we
should even pass over the circumstance that it is an extremely faulty symptomatic
treatment (v. note to § 7), wherein the practitioner devotes his attention in a merely
one-sided manner to a single symptom, consequently to only a small part of the whole,
whereby relief for the totality of the disease, which is what the patient desires, cannot
evidently be expected, – we must, on the other hand, demand of experience if, in one
single case where such antipathic employment of medicine was made use of in a chronic or
persisting affection, after the transient amelioration there did not ensue an increased
aggravation of the symptom which was subdued at first in a palliative manner, an
aggravation, indeed, of the whole disease? And every attentive observer will agree that,
after such short antipathic amelioration, aggravation follows in every case without
exception, although the ordinary physician is in the habit of giving his patient another
explanation of this subsequent aggravation, and ascribes it to malignancy of the original
disease, now for the first time showing itself, or to the occurrence of quite a new
disease1.1
Little as physicians have hitherto been in the habit of
observing accurately, the aggravation that so certainly follows such palliative treatment
could not altogether escape their notice. A striking example of this is to be found in J.
H. Schulze’s Diss. qua corporis humani momentanearum alterationum specimina quoedam
expenduntur, Hale, 1741, § 28. Willis bears testimony to something similar (Pharm. rat.,
§ 7, cap. I, p.298): Opiata dolores atroscissimos plerumque sedant atque indolentiam –
procurant, camque – aliquamdiu et pro stato quodam tempore continuant, quo spatio elapso
dolores mox recrusescunt et brevi ad sol itam ferociam augentur. And also at page 295:
Exactis opii viribus illico redeunt tormina, nec atrocitatem suam remittunt, nisi dum ab
eodem pharmaco rursus incantuntur. In like manner J. Hunter (On the Venereal Disease,
p.13) says that wine and cordials given to the weak increase the action without giving
real strength, and the powers of the body are afterwards sunk proportionally as they have
been raised, by which nothing can be gained, but a great deal may be lost.
Important symptoms of persistent diseases have never yet been treated
with such palliative, antagonistic remedies, without the opposite state, a relapse –
indeed, a palpable aggravation of the malady – occurring a few hours afterwards. For a
persistent tendency to sleepiness during the day the physician prescribed coffee, whose
primary action is to enliven; and when it had exhausted its action the day – somnolence
increased; – for frequent waking at night he gave in the evening, without heeding the
other symptoms of the disease, opium, which by virtue of its primary action produced the
same night (stupefied, dull) sleep, but the subsequent nights were still more sleepless
than before; – to chronic diarrhoeas he opposed, without regarding the other morbid signs,
the same opium, whose primary action is to constipate the bowels, and after a transient
stoppage of the diarrhoea it subsequently became all the worse; – violent and frequently
recurring pains of all kinds he could suppress with opium for but a short time; they then
always returned in greater, often intolerable severity, or some much worse affection came
in their stead. For nocturnal cough of long standing the ordinary physician knew no better
than to administer opium, whose primary action is to suppress every irritation; the cough
would then perhaps cease the first night, but during the subsequent nights it would be
still more severe, and if it were again and again suppressed by this palliative in
increased doses, fever and nocturnal perspiration were added to the disease; – weakness of
the bladder, with consequent retention of urine, was sought to be conquered by the
antipathic work of cantharides to stimulate the urinary passages whereby evacuation of the
urine was certainly at first effected but thereafter the bladder becomes less capable of
stimulation and less able to contract, and paralysis of the bladder is imminent; – with
large doses of purgative drugs and laxative salts, which excite the bowels to frequent
evacuation, it was sought to remove a chronic tendency to constipation, but in the
secondary action the bowels became still more confined; – the ordinary physician seeks to
remove chronic debility by the administration of wine, which, however, stimulates only in
its primary action, and hence the forces sink all the lower in the secondary its primary
action, and hence the forces sink all the lower in the secondary action; – by bitter
substances and heating condiments he tries to strengthen and warm the chronically weak and
cold stomach, but in the secondary action of these palliatives, which are stimulating in
their primary action only, the stomach becomes yet more inactive; – long standing
deficiency of vital heat and chilly disposition ought surely to yield to prescriptions of
warm baths, but still more weak, cold, and chilly do the patients subsequently become; –
severely burnt parts feel instantaneous alleviation from the application of cold water,
but the burning pain afterwards increases to an incredible degree, and the inflammation
spreads and rises to a still greater height;1 – by means of the
sternutatory remedies that provoke a secretion of mucus, coryza with stoppage of the nose
of long standing is sought to be removed, but it escapes observation that the disease is
aggravated all the more by these antagonistic remedies (in their secondary action), and
the nose becomes still more stopped; – by electricity and galvanism, with in their primary
action greatly stimulate muscular action, chronically weak and almost paralytic limbs were
soon excited to more active movements, but the consequence (the secondary action) was
complete deadening of all muscular irritability and complete paralysis; – by venesections
it was attempted to remove chronic determination of blood to the head, but they were
always followed by greater congestion; – ordinary medical practitioners know nothing
better with which to treat the paralytic torpor of the corporeal and mental organs,
conjoined with unconsciousness, which prevails in many kinds of typhus, than with large
doses of valerian, because this is one of the most powerful medicinal agents for causing
animation and increasing the motor faculty; in their ignorance, however, they knew not
that this action is only a primary action, and that the organism, after that is passed,
most certainly falls back, in the secondary (antagonistic) action, into still greater
stupor and immobility, that is to say, into paralysis of the mental and corporeal organs
(and death); they did not see, that the very diseases they supplied most plentifully with
valerian, which is in such cases an oppositely acting, antipathic remedy, most infallibly
terminated fatally. The old school physician rejoices2 that he is
able to reduce for several hours the velocity of the small rapid pulse in cachectic
patients with the very first dose of uncombined purple foxglove (which in its primary
action makes the pulse slower); its rapidity, however, soon returns; repeated, and now
increased doses effect an ever smaller diminution of its rapidity, and at length none at
all – indeed – in the secondary action the pulse becomes uncountable; sleep, appetite and
strength depart, and a speedy death is invariably the result, or else insanity ensues. How
often, in one word, the disease is aggravated, or something even worse is effected by the
secondary action of such antagonistic (antipathic) remedies, the old school with its false
theories does not perceive, but experience teaches it in a terrible manner.1
Vide Introduction.
2
Vide Hufeland, in his pamphlet, Die Homoopathie, p.20.
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