§
6§
The
unprejudiced observer – well aware of the futility of transcendental
speculations which can receive no confirmation from experience – be his powers
of penetration ever so great, takes note of nothing in every individual disease,
except the changes in the health of the body and of the mind (morbid phenomena,
accidents, symptoms) which can be perceived externally by means of the senses;
that is to say, he notices only the deviations from the former healthy state of
the now diseased individual, which are felt by the patient himself, remarked by
those around him and observed by the physician. All these perceptible signs
represent the disease in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true
and only conceivable portrait of the disease.
Kent
: The teaching of this paragraph is that symptoms represent to the intelligent
physician all there is to be known of the nature of a sickness, that these
symptoms represent the state of disorder, that sickness is only a change of
state and all the physician has to do is correct the disordered state. In this
paragraph, Hahnemann does not speak about changes of tissues or changes in the
organs, but change of state. What is there are changes in tissue present ? There
is nothing in the nature of a diseased tissue to point to a remedy ; it is only
a result of disease. Tissue changes do not indicate the remedy, so physicians
must learn to go back to the very beginning.
§
7 §
Now,
as in a disease, from which no manifest exciting or maintaining cause (causa
occasionalis) has to be removed, we can perceive nothing but the morbid
symptoms, it must (regard being had to the possibility of a miasm, and attention
paid to the accessory circumstances, be the symptoms alone by which
the disease demands and points to the remedy suited to relieve it – and,
moreover, the totality of these its symptoms, of this outwardly reflected
picture of the internal essence of the disease, that is, of the affection of the
vital force, must be the principal, or the sole means, whereby the disease can
make known what remedy it requires – the only thing that can determine the
choice of the most appropriate remedy – and thus, in a word, the totality of the
symptoms must be the principal, indeed the only thing the physician has to take
note of in every case of disease and to remove by means of his art, in order
that it shall be cured and transformed into health.
Kent
: The
physician must discriminate between the causes that are apparent or external,
the grosser things from the true causes of disease. If a man has disordered his
stomach, a dose of Nux vomica or whatever remedy indicated, will help the
stomach to right itself, and so long as he lives in an orderly way he will cease
to feel this indisposition.The Organon condemns on principle the removal of
external manifestations of disease by any external means whatever. This divides
homeopathy into two parts – the science and the art. The science relies treats
of the knowledge relating to the doctrine of cure ; the art is the art of
healing, for all healing consists in making application of the science.
§
8
§
It
is not conceivable, not can it be proved by any experience in the world, that,
after removal of all the symptoms of the disease and of the entire collection of
the perceptible phenomena, there should or could remain anything else besides
health, or that the morbid alteration in the interior could remain uneradicated.
In
the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital force (autocracy), the dynamis
that animates the material body (organism), rules with unbounded sway, and
retains all the parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious, vital operation,
as regards both sensations and functions, so that our indwelling, reason-gifted
mind can freely employ this living, healthy instrument for the higher purpose of
our existence.
Kent
: This paragraph introduces the vital principle. When the simple
substance is the active substance it dominates and controls the body it
occupies. The energy derived from the simple substance keeps all things in
order. We also see that this vital substance, when in a natural state, when in
contact with the human body, is constructive, it keeps the body continuously
constructed and reconstructed. But when the opposite is true, when the vital
force from any cause withdraws from the body, we see that the forces that are in
the body being turned loose are destructive. So, we see that the vital force is
constructive or formative and in its absence is death and destruction.
Protoplasm(for instance) is only protoplasm when it is living.
Chemically, all there is of protoplasm is C,O,H,N & S. You put together 54
parts of C, 21 of O, 16 of N, 7 of H and 2 of S, and what do you have ? Simply a
composite of something, but not that complexity which we identify as protoplasm
In analysing the protoplasm, what has become of the life force ? There is no
difference in weight after death; the simple substance cannot be weighed.
Neither weight, time not space can be predicated of the simple substance; and it
is not subject to the physical laws.
§
10§
The
material organism, without the vital force, is capable of no sensation, no
function, no self-preservation, it derives all sensation and performs all the
functions of life solely by means of the immaterial being (the vital principle)
which animates the material organism in health and in disease.
§
11§
When
a person falls ill, it is only this spiritual, self acting (automatic) vital
force, everywhere present in his organism, that is primarily deranged by the
dynamic influence upon it of a morbific agent inimical to life; it is only the
vital force, deranged to such an abnormal state, that can furnish the organism
with its disagreeable sensations, and incline it to the irregular processes
which we call disease; for, as a power invisible in itself, and only cognizable
by its effects on the organism, its morbid derangement only makes itself known
by the manifestation of disease in the sensations and functions of those parts
of the organism exposed to the senses of the observer and physician, that is, by
morbid symptoms, and in no other way can it make itself known.
Kent
: It is clear that Hahnemann wishes to teach that it is a disorder of the
activities of the internal man, a lack of harmony or lack of balance, which
gives forth the signs and symptoms by which we recognise disease.The morbific
agents that Hahnemann refers to are simply the extremely fine forms of simple
substance. It is only when the vital principle is disturbed by cause of a
disease character, that it gives forth any consciousness of itself.Some doctors
say ¨Oh! We will have a cure for cancer someday¨, having in mind the only the
symptoms of cancer; that is, the symptoms that represent the results of disease
and not the symptoms that represent the disease itself. To think of remedies for
cancer is confusion, but to think of remedies for the patient who appears to
have cancer is orderly, and you will be astonished to know what wonderful
changes will take place in these conditions when remedies that correspond to the
conditions before the cancer began are administered. Cancer, is the result of
the disorder, which must be turned into order and healed. To become conversant
with symptoms, to judge of the sphere and progress of disease by the study of
symptomatology, is the requirement for the homeopath.
§
12 §
It is
the morbidly affected vital energy alone that produces disease,
so that the morbid phenomena perceptible to our senses express at the same time
all the internal change, that is to say, the whole morbid derangement of the
internal dynamis; in a word, they reveal the whole disease; consequently, also,
the disappearance under treatment of all the morbid phenomena and of all the
morbid alterations that differ from the healthy vital operations, certainly
affects and necessarily implies the restoration of the integrity of the vital
force and, therefore, the recovered health of the whole organism.
§
13 §
Therefore
disease (that does not come within the province of manual surgery) considered,
as it is by the allopathists, as a thing separate from the living whole, from
the organism and its animating vital force, and hidden in the interior, be it
ever so subtle a character, is an absurdity, that could only be imagined by
minds of a materialistic stamp, and has for thousands of years given to the
prevailing system of medicine all those pernicious impulses that have made it a
truly mischievous (non-healing) art.
Kent
: You
will discover is course of time that in a large number of chronic diseases, our
anti-psorics will cause changes in the economy, curative or otherwise, in from
five to seven different potencies. In this you will have the demonstration of
degrees of simple substance, and their relation to different planes in the
interior of the economy.
§
14 §
There
is, in the interior of man, nothing morbid that is curable and no invisible
morbid alteration that is curable which does not make itself known to the
accurately observing physicians by means of morbid signs and symptoms – an
arrangement in perfect conformity with the infinite goodness of the all-wise
Preserver of human life.
Kent
: In this paragraph, we see Hahnemann’s recognition of divine providence.
In all your experiences, you will find a very poor lot of homeopaths among those
who do not recognise divine order. You will find among them false science,
experimentation, but never any government of principle, no thought of
purpose,order or use.
§
15 §
The
affection of the morbidly deranged, spirit-like dynamis (vital force) that
animates our body in the invisible interior, and the totality of the outwardly
cognizable symptoms produced by it in the organism and representing the existing
malady, constitute a whole; they are one and the same. The organism is indeed
the material instrument of the life, but it is not conceivable without the
animation imparted to it by the instinctively perceiving and regulating dynamis,
just as the vital force is not conceivable without the organism, consequently
the two together constitute a unity, although in thought our mind separates this
unity into two distinct conceptions for the sake of easy comprehension.
Kent
: Everything that flows from the centre, must be considered in connection
with the centre. Man’s healthy vital force is a result of the action from a
centre.
Our
vital force, as a spirit-like dynamis, cannot be attacked and affected by
injurious influences on the healthy organism caused by the external inimical
forces that disturb the harmonious play of life, otherwise than in a spirit-like
(dynamic) way, and in like manner, all such morbid derangements (diseases)
cannot be removed from it by the physician in any other way than by the
spirit-like (dynamic,
virtual) alterative powers of the serviceable medicines acting upon our
spirit-like vital force, which perceives them through the medium of the sentient
faculty of the nerves everywhere present in the organism, so that it is only by
their dynamic action on the vital force that remedies are able to re-establish
and do actually re-establish health and vital harmony, after the changes in the
health of the patient cognizable by our senses (the totality of the symptoms)
have revealed the disease to the carefully observing and investigating physician
as fully as was requisite in order to enable him to cure it.
Kent
: This paragraph treats of three states : (1) of the state of health (2)
of how that state is made sick and turned into disorder and (3) of how that
disordered state can be turned into health. Medicines cannot affect the high and
interior planes of the physical economy unless they are raised to the plane of
similarity in quality. A chronic case that would be relieved by moderately
high potencies would only improve for a matter of weeks, but on the
administration of much higher potencies that work could be taken up, and in that
way the same patient can be carried on from one potency to another. Medicines
will not act curatively unless potentised to correspond to the degrees in which
the man is sick. When the physician goes to the bedside of the sick, he asks
himself, Do I know a remedy that has produced among healthy men, symptoms like
this.
§
17 §
Now, as
in the cure effected by the removal of the whole of the perceptible signs and
symptoms of the disease the internal alteration of the vital principle to which
the disease is due – consequently the whole of the disease – is at the same time
removed,
it follows that the physician has only to remove the whole of the symptoms in
order, at the same time, to abrogate and annihilate the internal change, that is
to say, the morbid derangement of the vital force – consequently the totality of
the disease, the disease itself. But when the disease is annihilated the health
is restored, and this is the highest, the sole aim of the physician who knows
the true object of his mission, which consists not in learned – sounding
prating, but in giving aid to the sick.
Kent : The idea
of this paragraph is that the removal of the totality of symptoms is actually
the removal of the cause.The cure of the disease means permanent removal of the
totality of symptoms, thus removing the cause and turning disorder into order,
and thus as a consequence the results of the disease are removed.
From
this indubitable truth, that besides the totality of the symptoms with
consideration of the accompanying modalities (5) nothing can by any means be
discovered in disease wherewith they could express their need of aid, it follows
undeniably that the sum of all the symptoms and conditions in each individual
case of disease must be the sole indication, the sole guide to direct us in the
choice of a remedy.
Kent : But it is
not enough to consider the totality as a whole, beside considering all the
symptoms collectively each individual symptom must be examined to see what
relation it sustains to the totality and also to whether it is a common symptom,
a particular symptom or a peculiarly characteristic symptom.
§
19 §
Now,
as diseases are nothing more than alterations in the state of health of the
healthy individual which express themselves by morbid signs, and the cure is
also only possible by a change to the healthy condition of the state of health
of the diseased individual, it is very evident that medicines could never cure
disease if they did not possess the power of altering man’s state of health
which depends on sensations and functions; indeed, that their curative power
must be owing solely to this power they possess of altering man’s state of
health.
Kent
: The
statement is that medicines must be capable of effecting changes in the economy
or they cannot restore order to the economy. The potency must be consistent with
the degree of susceptibility that calls for the medicine. This susceptibility
includes a wide range of potency, so that from the 30th to cm, there is seldom a
miss in actual experience.
§
20 §
This
spirit-like power to alter man’s state of health (and hence to cure diseases)
which lies hidden in the inner nature of medicines can in itself never be
discovered by us by a mere effort of reason; it is only by experience of the
phenomena it displays when acting on the state of health of man that we can
become clearly cognizant of it.
Kent
: It
is first necessary to know that drugs can make man sick, and next to know what
the state of sickness is. Every medicine that a homeopath uses should have been
thoroughly proven upon the healthy so that its symptom image shall have been
thoroughly brought out.
§ 21 §
Now,
as it is undeniable that the curative principle in medicines is not in itself
perceptible, and as in pure experiments with medicines conducted by the most
accurate observers, nothing can be observed that can constitute them medicines
or remedies except that power of causing distinct alterations in the state of
health of the human body, and particularly in that of the healthy individual,
and of exciting in him various definite morbid symptoms; so it follows that when
medicines act as remedies, they can only bring their curative property into play
by means of this their power of altering man’s state of health by the production
of peculiar symptoms; and that, therefore, we have only to rely on the morbid
phenomena which the medicines produce in the healthy body as the sole possible
revelation of their in-dwelling curative power, in order to learn what
disease-producing power, and at the same time what disease-curing power, each
individual medicine possesses
§
22§
But
as nothing is to be observed in diseases that must be removed in order to change
them into health besides the totality of their signs and symptoms, and likewise
medicines can show nothing curative besides their tendency to produce morbid
symptoms in healthy persons and to remove them in diseased persons; it follows,
on the one hand, that medicines only become remedies and capable of annihilating
disease, because the medicinal substance, by exciting certain effects and
symptoms, that is to say, by producing a certain artificial morbid state,
removes and abrogates the symptoms already present, to wit, the natural morbid
state we wish to cure. On the other hand, it follows that, for the totality of
the symptoms of the disease to be cured, a medicine must be sought which
(according as experience shall prove whether the morbid symptoms are most
readily, certainly, and permanently removed and changed into health by similar
or opposite medicinal symptoms)
have the greatest tendency to produce similar or opposite symptoms.
§
23 §
All
pure experience, however, and all accurate research convince us that persistent
symptoms of disease are far from being removed and annihilated by opposite
symptoms of medicines (as in the antipathic, enantiopathic or palliative
method), that, on the contrary, after transient, apparent alleviation, they
break forth again, only with increased intensity, and become manifestly
aggravated (see ¤ 58 – 62 and 69).
§
24§
There
remains, therefore, no other mode of employing medicines in diseases that
promises to be of service besides the homoeopathic, by means of which we seek,
for the totality of the symptoms of the case of disease, a medicine which among
all medicines (whose pathogenetic effects are known from having been tested in
healthy individuals) has the power and the tendency to produce an artificial
morbid state most similar to that of the case of disease in question.
§ 25
§
Now,
however, in all careful trials, pure experience,
the sole and infallible oracle of the healing art, teaches us that actually that
medicine which, in its action on the healthy human body, has demonstrated its
power of producing the greatest number of symptoms similar to those observable
in the case of disease under treatment, does also, in doses of suitable potency
and attenuation, rapidly, radically and permanently remove the totality of the
symptoms of this morbid state, that is to say ( 6 – 16), the whole disease
present, and change it into health; and that all medicines cure, without
exception, those diseases whose symptoms most nearly resemble their own, and
leave none of them uncured.
Kent
: In these paragraphs Hahnemann summarises what he has said before and
points out the necessary conclusions. In doing so he proves that the only method
of applying medicines profitably in disease is the homeopathic method.
This
depends on the following homoeopathic law of nature which was sometimes, indeed,
vaguely surmised but not hitherto fully recognized, and to which is due every
real cure that has ever taken place:
A weaker dynamic affection is permanently extinguished in
the living organism by a stronger one, if the latter (whilst differing in kind)
is very similar to the former in its manifestations.
Kent
: In this paragraph, Hahnemann distinctly declares that the phenomena of
cure depends entirely upon fixed law, the law of
similars, or the law that governs homeopathy.The law of similars is
seen prominently in the natural world. One example of this is seen in the young
girl who has lost her mother or lover and is ill as a consequence, is depressed
with grief. She sits in a corner, hears nobody, thinks no one can pity her. Let
us apply allopathic treatment to her. ‘Come, there is nothing the matter with
you; why don’t you brace yourself’ . But this only throws her into a deeper
state of melancholy. But introduce the homeopathic treatment, employ a nurse who
has gone through the same grief and let her make a big fuss in the other corner.
Pretty soon the patient will say ‘You seem to have the same grief that I have’.
‘Yes, I have lost a lover’. ‘ Well you can sympathise with me’ and the two fall
to bellowing and weep it out together. When a patient would exert her will, but
is unable on account of physical encumberances, then the homeopathic remedy will
restore order.
§
27 §
The
curative power of medicines, therefore, depends on their symptoms, similar to
the disease but superior to it in strength ( 12 – 26), so that each individual
case of disease is most surely, radically, rapidly and permanently annihilated
and removed only by a medicine capable of producing (in the human system) in the
most similar and complete manner the totality of its symptoms, which at the same
time are stronger than the disease.
Kent
: Then, it is not
sufficient merely to give the drug itself regardless of its form. It is not
sufficient to give the crude drug, but the plane upon which it must be given is
a question of study. The attentuation must be similar to the disease cause.
§
28 §
As
this natural law of cure manifests itself in every pure experiment and every
true observation in the world, the fact is consequently established; it matters
little what may be scientific explanation of how it takes place; and I do not
attach much importance to the attempts made to explain it. But the following
view seems to commend itself as the most probable one, as it is founded on
premises derived from experience.
§
29 §
As
every disease (not entirely surgical) consists only in a special, morbid,
dynamic alteration of our vital energy (of the principle of life) manifested in
sensation and motion, so in every homoeopathic cure this principle of life
dynamically altered by natural disease is seized through the administration of
medicinal potency selected exactly according to symptom-similarity by a somewhat
stronger, similar artificial disease-manifestation. By this the feeling of the
natural (weaker) dynamic disease-manifestation ceases and disappears. This
disease-manifestation no longer exists for the principle of life which is now
occupied and governed merely by the stronger, artificial disease-manifestation.
This artificial disease-manifestation has soon spent its force and leaves the
patient free from disease, cured. The dynamis, thus freed, can now continue to
carry life on in health. This most highly probable process rests upon the
following propositions.
Kent
:
Here, Hahnemann has given an explanation of the law of cure. He himself preludes
it by saying that he does not attach much importance to it.
§
30 §
The
human body appears to admit of being much more powerfully affected in its health
by medicines (partly because we have the regulation of the dose in our own
power) than by natural morbid stimuli – for natural diseases are cured and
overcome by suitable medicines.
§
31 §
The
inimical forces, partly psychical, partly physical, to which our terrestrial
existence is exposed, which are termed morbific noxious agents, do not possess
the power of morbidly deranging the health of man unconditionally;
but we are made ill by them only when our organism is sufficiently disposed and
susceptible to attack of the morbific cause that may be present, and to be
altered in its health, deranged and made to undergo abnormal sensations and
functions – hence they do not produce disease in every one nor at all times.
§
32 §
But
it is quite otherwise with the artificial morbific agents which we term
medicines. Every real medicine, namely, acts at all times, under all
circumstances, on every living human being, and produces in him its peculiar
symptoms (distinctly perceptible, if the dose be large enough), so that
evidently every living human organism is liable to be affected, and, as it were,
inoculated with the medicinal disease at all times, and absolutely
(unconditionally), which, as before said, is by no means the case with the
natural diseases.
Kent
:
These paragraphs have a bearing upon degree or intensity(which is
potentisation), upon the repetition of dose, and upon susceptibility, things
which must be known by the homeopathic physician in order that he be a good
prescriber.Enough medicine must be given to establish order, and that is done
almost instantaneously, and as long order continues after it has once begun, so
long ‘hand off’.
§
3
3 §
In
accordance with this fact, it is undeniably shown by all experience that the
living organism is much more disposed and has a greater liability to be acted
on, and to have its health deranged by medicinal powers, than by morbific
noxious agents and infectious miasms, or, in order words,that the morbific noxious agents possess a power of morbidly deranging
man’s health that is subordinate and conditional, often very conditional; whilst
medicinal agents have an absolute unconditional power, greatly superior to the
former.
Kent
: The
greatest difficulty in the management of chronic diseases is those that have
been brought about in the economy by continous drug taking. These people are so
disordered that it takes several years of careful prescribing to turn them into
a state of order.
§
34 §
The
greater strength of the artificial diseases producible by medicines is, however,
not the sole cause of their power to cure natural disease. In order that they
may effect a cure, it is before all things requisite that they should be capable
of producing in the human body an artificial disease as similar as possible to
the disease to be cured, which, with somewhat increased power, transforms to a
very similar morbid state the instinctive life principle, which in itself is
incapable of any reflection or act of memory. It not only obscures, but
extinguishes and thereby annihilates the derangement caused by the natural
disease. This is so true, that no previously existing disease can be cured, even
by Nature herself, by the accession of a new dissimilar disease, be it ever so
strong, and just as little can it be cured by medical treatment with drugs which
are incapable of producing a similar morbid condition in the healthy body.
Kent
:Hahnemann
alludes to two prepositions that (1) in order to cure, the medicines must be
able to produce in the human body an artificial disease similar to that which is
to be cured. (2) the aritifical disease must be of a greater degree of
intensity.
§
35 §
In
order to illustrate this, we shall consider in three different cases, as well
what happens in nature when two dissimilar natural diseases meet to in one
person, as also the result of the ordinary medical treatment of diseases with
unsuitable allopathic drugs, which are incapable of producing an artificial
morbid condition similar to the disease to be cured, whereby it will appear that
even Nature herself is unable to remove a dissimilar disease already present by
one that is unhomoeopathic, even though it be stronger, and just as little is
the unhomoeopathic employment of even the strongest medicines ever capable of
curing any disease whatsoever.
§
36§
If
the two dissimilar diseases meeting together in the human being be of equal
strength, or still more if the older one be the stronger, the new disease will
be repelled by the old one from the body and not allowed to affect it. A patient
suffering from a severe chronic disease will not be infected by a moderate
autumnal dysentery or other epidemic disease. The plague of the Levant,
according to Larry, does not break out where scurvy is prevalent, and persons
suffering from eczema are not infected by it. Rachitis, Jenner alleges, prevents
vaccination from taking effect. Those suffering from pulmonary consumption are
not liable to be attacked by epidemic fevers of a not very violent character,
according to Von Hildenbrand.
§
37§
So,
also under ordinary medical treatment, an old chronic disease remains uncured
and unaltered if it is treated according to the common allopathic method, that
is to say, with medicines that are incapable of producing in healthy individuals
a state of health similar to the disease, even though the treatment should last
for years and is not of too violent character. This is daily witnessed in
practice, it is therefore unnecessary to give any illustrative examples.
§
38§
Or
the new dissimilar disease is the stronger. In this case the disease under which
the patient originally labored, being the weaker, will be kept back and
suspended by the accession of the stronger one, until the latter shall have run
its course or been cured, and then the old one reappears uncured. Two children
affected with a kind of epilepsy remained free from epileptic attacks after
infection with ringworm (tinea) but as soon as the eruption on the head was gone
the epilepsy returned just as before, as Tulpius observed. The itch, as Schopf
saw, disappeared on the occurrence of the scurvy, but after the cure of the
latter it again broke out. So, also the pulmonary phthisis remained stationary
when the patient was attacked by a violent typhus, but went on again after the
latter had run its course. If mania occur in a consumptive patient, the phthisis
with all its symptoms is removed by the former; but if that go off, the phthisis
returns immediately and proves fatal. When measles and smallpox are prevalent at
the same time, and both attack the same child, the measles that had already
broken out is generally checked by the smallpox that came somewhat later; nor
does the measles resume its course until after the cure of the smallpox; but it
not infrequently happens that the inoculated smallpox is suspended for four days
by the supervention of the measles, as observed by Manget, after the
desquamation of which the smallpox completes its course. Even when the
inoculation of the smallpox had taken effect for six days, and the measles then
broke out, the inflammation of the inoculation remained stationary and the
smallpox did not ensue until the measles had completed its regular course of
seven days. In an epidemic of measles, that disease attacked many individuals on
the fourth or fifth day after the inoculation of smallpox and prevented the
development of the smallpox until it had completed its own course, whereupon the
smallpox appeared and proceeded regularly to its termination. The true, smooth,
erysipelatous-looking scarlatina of Sydenham, with sore throat, was checked on
the fourth day by the eruption of cow-pox, which ran its regular course, and not
till it was ended did the scarlatina again establish itself; but on another
occasion, as both diseases seem to be of equal strength, the cow-pox was
suspended on the eighth day by the supervention of the true, smooth scarlatina
of Sydenham, and the red areola of the former disappeared until the scarlatina
was gone, wherein the cow-pox immediately resumed its course, and went on its
regular termination. The measles suspended the cow-pox; on the eighth day, when
the cow-pox had nearly attained its climax, the measles broke out; the cow-pox
now remained stationary, and did not resume and complete its course until the
desquamation of the measles, had taken place, so that on the sixteenth day it
presented the appearance it otherwise would have shown on the tenth day, as
Kortum observed.
Even
after the measles had broken out the cow-pox inoculation took effect, but did
not run its course until these measles had disappeared, as Kortum likewise
witnessed.
I
myself saw the mumps (angina parotidea) immediately disappear when the cow-pox
inoculation had taken effect and had nearly attained its height; it was not
until the complete termination of the cow-pox and the disappearance of its red
areola that this febrile tumefaction of the parotid and submaxillary glands,
that is caused by a peculiar miasm, reappeared and ran its regular course of
seven days.
And
thus it is with all dissimilar disease; the stronger suspends the weaker (when
they do not complicate one another, which is seldom the case with acute
disease), but they never cure one another.
§
39 §
Now
the adherents of the ordinary school of medicine saw all this for so many
centuries; they saw that Nature herself cannot cure any disease by the accession
of another, be it ever so strong, if the new disease be dissimilar to that
already present in the body. What shall we think of them, that they nevertheless
went on treating chronic disease with allopathic remedies, namely, with
medicines and prescriptions capable of producing God knows what morbid state –
almost invariably, however, one dissimilar to the disease to be cured? And even
though physicians did not hitherto observe nature attentively, the miserable
results of their treatment should have taught them that they were pursuing an
inappropriate, a false path. Did they not perceive when they employed, as was
their custom, and aggressive allopathic treatment in a chronic disease, that
thereby they only created an artificial disease dissimilar to the original one,
which, as long as it was kept up, merely held in abeyance, merely suppressed,
merely suspended the original disease, which latter, however, always returned,
and must return, as soon as the diminished strength of the patient no longer
admitted of a continuance of the allopathic attacks on the life? Thus the itch
exanthema certainly disappears very soon from the skin under the employment of
violent purgatives, frequently repeated; but when the patient can no longer
stand the factitious (dissimilar) disease of the bowels, and can take no more
purgatives, then either the cutaneous eruption breaks out as before, or the
internal psora displays itself in some bad symptom, and the patient, in addition
to his undiminished original disease, has to endure the misery of a painful
ruined digestion and impaired strength to boot. So, also, when the ordinary
physicians keep up artificial ulcerations of the skin and issues on the exterior
of the body, with the view of thereby eradicating a chronic disease, they can
NEVER cure them by that means, as such artificial cutaneous ulcers are quite
alien and allopathic to the internal affection; but inasmuch as the irritation
produced by several tissues is at least sometimes a stronger (dissimilar)
disease than the indwelling malady, the latter is thereby sometimes silenced and
suspended for a week or two. But it is only suspended, and that for a very short
time, while the patient’s powers are gradually worn out. Epilepsy, suppressed
for many years by means of issues, invariably recurred, and in an aggravated
form, when they were allowed to heal up, as Pechlin and others testify. But
purgatives for itch, and issues for epilepsy, cannot be more heterogeneous, more
dissimilar deranging agents – cannot be more allopathic, more exhausting modes
of treatment – than are the customary prescriptions, composed of unknown
ingredients, used in ordinary practice for the other nameless, innumerable forms
of disease. These likewise do nothing but debilitate, and only suppress or
suspend the malady for a short time without being able to cure it, and when used
for a long time always add a new morbid state to the old disease.
§
40§
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, 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. Russell met with both these dissimilar diseases
in one person at the same time. Rainey witnessed the simultaneous occurrence of
smallpox and measles in two girls. J. Maurice, in his whole practice, only
observed two such cases. Similar cases are to be found in Ettmuller’s works, and
in the writings of a few others.
Zencker
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.
§
41 §
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 affection 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.
§42§
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.
Kent
: From these paragraphs we see that there are several kinds of protection
from sickness.When a violent epidemic is raging we all know that, although the
number of victims is large, there are few who go unscathed.We suppose, and
probably rightly so, that a large number of the immune who have escaped because
they were unusually strong and vigorous and in a state of good order. But we
find a number of person, who are anything but strong and suffering from chronic
diseases, who have also escaped the epidemic. This is an illustration of
dissimilars, i.e: if the chronic disease is stronger than the epidemic disease,
it cannot be suppressed.In some cases, we have a complexity of horrible things,
like one built upon the another, and when this is so, in treating them, the last
group which was removed will appear first, which shows that the remedy has done
its work, and then we go to the next and so on. They must disappear in the
reverse order of their coming, as if put on layers one piled upon another.
§43 §
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.
Kent
: Then
a real conjunction takes place, a union, which results in the disappearance of
old things and new things come and exist in a state of order.
§
44 §
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 §
No!
Two diseases, differing, it is true, in kind 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 extinguished, 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.
§
46 §
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 Dezoteux cured a chronic ophthalmia
permanently, and Leroy another.
An
amaurosis of two years’ duration, consequent on suppressed scald head, was
perfectly cured by it, according to Klein.
How
often does smallpox cause deafness and dyspnoea! And both these chronic diseases
it removed on reaching its acme, as J. Fr. Closs 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 Klein observed, to cure, by
virtue of similarity, a large hard swelling of the left testicle, consequently
on a bruise. And another observer 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. Wendt 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 milder, as Muhry
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.
The
cow-pox, a peculiar symptom of which is to cause tumefaction of the arm, cured,
after it broke out, a swollen half-paralyzed arm.
The
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 Hardege reports, confirming what J. Hunter 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 Bosquillon 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) cured by the breaking out of the measles, as
Kortum 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
§
47§
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.
§ 48§
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.
Kent
: If a
drug that is really homeopathic to the case is continued, after enough has been
given to cure, a miasm is established in some cases by that drug, and this miasm
imitates one of the chronic diseases or one of the acute miasms in accordance
with its ability. When a patient is hypersensitive, avoid the use of the cm and
mm potencies, which will make your patient sick and instead use the 30th
and 200th.
§ 49 §
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.
§
50 §
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 smallpox, morbific agents which, 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!
§
51§
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 §
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 §
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 §
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
Medicine.
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 matter 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.)
§
55 §
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 §
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
disease
§
57 §
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.
§
58 §
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 ,
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
disease.
§
59 §
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; – 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
rejoices 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.
§
60 §
If
these ill-effects are produced, as may very naturally be expected from the
antipathic employment of medicines, the ordinary physician imagines he can get
over the difficulty by giving, at each renewed aggravation, a stronger dose of
the remedy, whereby an equally transient suppression is effected; and as there
then is a still greater necessity for giving ever – increasing quantities of the
palliative there ensues either another more serious disease or frequently even
danger to life and death itself, but never a cure of a disease of considerable
or of long standing.
§
61 §
Had
physicians been capable of reflecting on the sad results of the antagonistic
employment of medicines, they had long since discovered the grand truth, THAT
THE TRUE RADICAL HEALING ART MUST BE FOUND IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF SUCH AN
ANTIPATHIC TREATMENT OF THE SYMPTOMS OF DISEASE; they would have become
convinced, that as a medicinal action antagonistic to the symptoms of the
disease (an antipathically employed medicine) is followed by only transient
relief, and after that is passed, by invariable aggravation, the converse of
that procedure, the homoeopathic employment of medicines according to similarity
of symptoms, must effect a permanent and perfect cure, if at the same time the
opposite of their large doses, the most minute doses, are exhibited. But neither
the obvious aggravation that ensued from their antipathic treatment, nor the
fact that no physician ever effected a permanent cure of disease of considerable
or of long standing unless some homoeopathic medicinal agent was accidentally a
chief ingredient in his prescription, nor yet the circumstances that all the
rapid and perfect cures that nature ever performed (¤ 46), were always effected
by the supervention upon the old disease of one of asimilarcharacter,
ever taught them, during such a long series of centuries, this truth, the
knowledge of which can alone conduce to the benefit of the sick.
§
62 §
But
on what this pernicious result of the palliative, antipathic treatment and the
efficacy of the reverse, the homoeopathic treatment, depend, is explained by the
following facts, deduced from manifold observations, which no one before me
perceived, though they are so very palpable and so very evident, and are of such
infinite importance to the healing art.