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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
        Bethesda, Maryland

              Gift of
  The National Center for Homeopathy
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           LIBRARY
AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR HOMOEOPATHY
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              LIBRARY
AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR HOMOEOPATHY
ORGANON
HOMCEOPATHIC   MEDICINE
BY  SAMUEL HAHNEMANN
Aude sapere.
                 FIRST AMERICAN,

    jfvom tlje aScftfsf) translation of tjje j?ourt|) ffievman HWtion,

WITH IMPROVEMENTS AND ADDITIONS FROM THE FIFTH, BY THE NORTH AMERICAN
           ACADEMY  OF THE HOMOEOPATHIC HEALING ART.
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PREFACE  TO THE BRITISH  EDITION
   An accidental interview with a Russian physician, in the year
 1828, made me acquainted for the first  time with the medical
 doctrine of homoeopathy ; the principle of which is, that certain
 medicines  when administered internally in  a healthy state of
 the system produce certain effects, and that the same medicines
 are to be used when symptoms similar to those which they give
 rise  to  occur in disease.  This doctrine, directly opposite to
 that which hitherto  formed  the basis  of medical practice in
 these countries, attracted my  attention.  I immediately procured
 Hahnemann's Materia Medica Pura, in  which the doctrine is
 partially explained, with the view of investigating the system
 experimentally,  and  reporting my observations  thereon,  free
 from theory, prejudice, or party.  The first enquiry was, whe-
 ther the proposition similia similibus  curentur was true.  This
 investigation was confined to a single substance at a time.  To
 ascertain the effects of sulphate of quinine, healthy individuals
 were selected, to whom grain doses of the medicine were admi-
 nistered three times a day.  After using it for  some days,  sto-
 mach-sickness, loss of appetite, a sense of cold along the course
 of the spine, rigour, heat of skin, and general perspiration suc-
 ceeded.   Effects similar to these are often  observed when  this
 medicine is injudiciously selected in  the treatment of disease.
 It sometimes happens, that the symptoms of ague are aggravated
by the prolonged use of sulphate of quinia, and soon after it is
withdrawn the disease gradually subsides.   The result  of ex-
periments and observations on this remedy elucidate its homoeo-
 pathic action.

  Mercurial preparations, when  administered internally, pro- 
VI
duce symptoms local and constitutional  so  closely resembling
the poison of lues venerea that medical practitioners who have
spent many years in the investigation of syphilis find it very
difficult,  nay, in some  instances, impossible, (guided  by  the
appearances,) to distinguish one disease from the other.  Of all
the medicines used in the treatment of lues, mercury is the only
one that  has stood  the  test  of time  and experience.   Let us,
then, compare the effects of syphilis with those  of mercury:—
The venereal poison produces on the skin, pustules, scales, and
tubercles.  Mercury produces directly the same defoedations of
the skin.   Syphilis excites inflammation of the periosteum and
caries of the bones.   Mercury does the same. Inflammation of
the iris from lues is  an every-day occurrence ; the same  disease
is a very frequent consequence of mercury.   Ulceration of the
throat is  a  common symptom in  syphilis; the  same  affection
results from mercury.   Ulcers on the organs of reproduction
are the result of both the poison and the  remedy ; and furnish
another proof of the doctrine similia similibus.

  Nitric  acid is generally recommended in cutaneous diseases ;
the internal use of this remedy, in a very dilute form, produces
scaly eruptions over the surface of the body; and the external
application of a solution, in the proportion of one part acid to
one hundred  and twenty-eight  parts of water,  will produce
inflammation and ulceration  of the skin.  These observations
would lead to the conclusion, that  nitric  acid cures cutaneous
diseases by the faculty it possesses of producing a similar disease
of the skin.   Nitrate of potash administered internally in small
doses, produces  a frequent desire to pass water, accompanied
with pain  and heat.  When this state  of the  urinary system
exists as  a  consequence  of disease, or the application of a blister,
a very dilute solution of the same remedy has been found bene-
ficial.

  The ordinary effects of hyoscyamus niger are vertigo, deli 
VII
rium, stupefaction,  and somnolency.   Where one or other of
these diseased states exists, it yields to small doses of the tinc-
ture of this plant.  The internal use of hyoscyamus is followed
by mental aberration, the leading features of which are jealousy,
and irascibility.  When these hallucinations exist, this  remedy
is indicated.

  Opium in general causes drowsiness, torpor, and deep sleep,
and yet this remedy in small  doses removes these symptoms
when they occur in disease.

  Sulphur is a specific against itch ; notwithstanding which,
when it is administered to  healthy individuals it frequently ex-
cites a pustular eruption resembling itch in every particular.

  These observations corroborate the statements of our author
as to the value and importance of homoeopathy, and were not
the limits of a preface too confined I could bring  forward the
actual  experiments from which these deductions have been
drawn.

   On the subject of small doses of medicines a few observations
will suffice.

   A mixture composed of one drop of hydrocyanic acid and
eight ounces of water, administered in  a drachm dose, has pro-
duced vertigo and anxious breathing.   Vomiting has followed
the use of the  sixteenth of a grain of emetic tartar ;  narcotism,
the twentieth of a grain of muriate of morphia ; and spirit of
ammonia, in doses  of one drop, acts on the system as a stimu-
lant.

   On the homoeopathic  attenuation of medicines,  many are
sceptical, and presume that the quantity of the article extant in
the  dose, cannot produce a medicinal effect.   I refer to the
pages of the Organon  for an  elucidation  of this proposition, 
Vlll
and will relate an experiment which  may serve to explain  the
degree  of  dilution  substances  are capable of.   One  grain of
nitrate of silver dissolved in  1560 grains of distilled water, to
which were added two grains of muriatic acid, a gray precipi-
tate of chloride of silver was evident in every part of the liquor.
One orrain of iodine dissolved in a drachm of alcohol and mixed
with the same quantity of water as in the preceding experiment,
to which were added two grains of starch dissolved in an ounce
of water, caused an  evident blue tint in the solution.  In  these
experiments the grain of the nitrate of silver and iodine  must
have been divided into tt^fo °f a grain.

   A few particulars connected with the discoverer and founder
of the homoeopathic system of medicine, cannot but prove inte-
resting: to the readers of this  volume.   Samuel Hahnemann
was born in 1755, at Misnia, in  Upper Saxony.  He  exhibited
at an early age  traits of a superior genius ; his school education
being completed, he applied himself to the study of natural phi-
losophy and natural  history, and afterwards prosecuted the  study
of medicine at Leipsic and other universities.   A most accurate
observer, a skilful experimenter, and an  indefatigable  searcher
after truth, he appeared  formed  by nature for the investigation
and improvement of medical science.    On  commencing  the
study of medicine he  soon became disgusted with the mass of
contradictory assertions  and  theories which then existed.  He
found every thing in this department obscure, hypothetical and
vague, and resolved to abandon the medical profession.   Hav-
ing been previously engaged in the study of chemistry, he  deter-
mined on translating into his native language the best English
and French works on the subject.   Whilst engaged in translat-
ing the  Materia Medica of the  illustrious Cullen, in  1790, in
which  the  febrifuge virtues of cinchona bark are described, he
became  fired with the  desire of  ascertaining its mode of action.
Whilst  in  the enjoyment of  the most  robust  health,  he com-
menced the use of this substance, and in a  short time was 
IX
attacked with all the symptoms of intermittent fever, similar in
every respect to those which that  medicine is known to cure.
being struck with the identity of the two diseases he immedi-
ately divined the great truth which has become  the foundation
of the new medical doctrine of homoeopathy.

   Not contented with  one experiment he tried the virtues of
medicines on his own person, and on that of others.  In his in-
vestigations he arrived at this conclusion : that the substance
employed possessed an  inherent power of exciting in healthy
subjects the same symptoms which it is said to cure in the sick.
He compared the assertions of ancient and  modern physicians
upon the properties of poisonous substances with the result of
his own experiments,  and found  them to coincide in every
respect;  and upon  these deductions he brought forth his doc-
trine of homoeopathy.  Taking this law for a guide, he recom-
menced the practice of medicine, with every-prospect  of his
labours being ultimately crowned with success.

   In 1796 he published his first dissertation on homoeopathy
in Hufeland's Journal.   A treatise on the virtues  of medicine
appeared in 1805, and  the " Organori'  in  1810.  Hahnemann
commenced as a public medical teacher in Leipsic, in 1811,
where, with his pupils, he zealously investigated the effects of
medicines on the living body, which  formed the  basis  of the
Materia Medica Pura which appeared during the same year.

   Like many other discoverers in medicine, the author  of the
Organon has been persecuted with the utmost rigour ;  and in
1820 he quitted his  native country in disgust.  In  retirement
he was joined by several of his pupils, who formed themselves
into a  society for the purpose of prosecuting the homoeopathic
system of  physic,  and reporting  their observations thereon.
Several fasciculi detailing  their labours  have been since pub-
lished.
       b 
x
  In 1824 the homoeopathic doctrine was embraced by Rau,
physician to the Duke of Hesse Darmstadt; by Bigelius, physi-
cian to the Emperor of Russia;  by Stegemann, and many
other names celebiated in medicine.

  We find, from a published letter of Dr. Peschier of Geneva,
that Hahnemann resides at Coethen, (capital of Anhalt-Coethen,)
in the enjoyment of perfect health and spirits.  He is consulted
by patients from almost every nation, who have been attracted
by his fame as a physician.

  Of the doctrine of homoeopathy generally, I have little more
to add in this place; time will develope the truth or fallacy of the
principle on which it is founded ; but in the mean time let us
not lose sight of the  fact, that this  new system of physic is
spreading throughout the continent of Europe with the rapidity
of lightning.  Germany, Austria, Russia, and  Poland, have
already done homage to the doctrine, and physicians have been
appointed  to make a specific trial  of its effects, the  results of
which  are unequivocally acknowledged to be of a favourable
nature.  The writings of the illustrious  Hahnemann have  ap-
peared in five different languages, independent of the  present
version of his  " Organon ;" and in France alone, a translation
of this  work, from the pen of A. J. L. Jourdan,  member of the
Academie  Royale de Medecine, has reached a fourth edition.

  Convinced, from reflection  and  observation, of the value of
homoeopathy, the first step in the propagation and dissemination
of this doctrine, in Britain, was to obtain an English version of
the " Organon."

                                   Samuel Stratten.
    Dublin, June 14th, 1833. 
PREFACE TO  THE  AMERICAN EDITION.
  First impressions commonly determine our judgment of books
as well as men.  If, on a first interview, a person be repulsive
to us, and those who  for years have had  familiar intercourse
with him, admit that we are excusable for first impressions, but
nevertheless assure us that  he is possessed of very valuable
qualities, and that  a nearer acquaintance with him may be use-
ful to us,—when, in addition, our informants give us a key to
a more correct judgment, we are no longer justifiable in main-
taining our original impressions.  Still more would our opinions
be influenced, if, before seeing the person, we  were furnished in
advance with a short and impartial representation of his character
by one who knew him intimately.   If this rule of judgment be
applicable to persons,  wherefore should it not apply to books?
  The Organon contains much that is peculiar  and different
from the views hitherto entertained by the prevailing school of
medicine.   Most readers of  the medical profession,  therefore,
conceive prejudices against it, and fall into the vulgar error of
rejecting the whole, merely because they do not justly regard it
as a whole,—they reject the main propositions, because they are
offended at the  subordinate.
  The reader needs no elaborate introduction to the following
work,  and it is  requisite,  perhaps, only to  apprise him of  the
different classes into  which its several  paragraphs may be
divided; and this  being done,  we shall submit each separate
class to his own judgment.
  The entire contents of the Organon may be easily arranged
under  the four following, divisions, which, indeed, do not occur
in the  order in which they are here given, but they might  easily
have been designated in accordance to it, by causing them to 
Xll
 be severally printed in a different  type.  They consist,— 1. Of
 discoveries—experimental propositions, or the results of actual
 experiment.  2. Of directions or instructions.  3. Of theoreti-
 cal and philosophical illustration.   4. Of defences and accu-
 sations.

                    I.—OF DISCOVERIES.
   Among men of  deliberate and acute reflection, no difference
 of opinion can exist relative to the truth of a discovery which
 rests upon the basis of actual experiment.   When  the  author
 appeals to such experiments, they must be led to a repetition of
 them,  and not oppose their  own opinions to the dictates of
 experience;  in fine, they have no other way in forming a judg-
 ment, than that of accurate and careful experiment.
   It may be said that every charlatan in extolling his nostrums
 in like manner appeals to experience, and no one is required for
 that reason to investigate the  merits of his compounds  ; but it
 will not be denied that, although the person of the quack may
 deserve little forbearance, yet the remedy with which he dupes
 the public, may in some cases prove beneficial.   The old school
 has received  many remedies, mercury among  others, from  the
 hands of the quack.
   But, in the Organon, experience  is not referred to for the pur-
 pose of lauding any individual remedy ;  far more, it has rela-
 tion to an entire method of cure.   None but a vulgar dealer in
 calumny of the grosser sort, would attempt to degrade  Hahne-
 mann to a level with the charlatan; because he promulgates his
 views and the peculiarities of his  method, as a learned physi-
 cian, and in a manner that is sanctioned  by custom, and fully
 recognised in the history of medicine.
   But  his method, as  we have already  intimated, appeals to
 experience.   Not to mention the example of Brown, we need
only refer  to that of Broussais, and the reports received  strik-
ingly in favour of his doctrines, or even to the contra-stimulus
of the  Italians, which incessantly  appeals  to  the same expe-
rience as the  test of its value.
   It is, indeed, desirable that every learned physician—profes- 
Xlll
sors, hospital  physicians, and others in prominent stations
should carefully study, and so far as the  experiments are inno-
cuous, prove his new method; nay, Hahnemann and his adher-
ents often and ardently desire that every physician would learn,
investigate, and prove homoeopathy for himself.
  But homoeopathy is not only a new method, but much more.
  This method does not rest upon new views, like every other
hitherto promulgated, but upon new discoveries, which appertain
to the  departments of natural philosophy, the natural sciences,
physiology and biology.
  The doctrine  that every peculiar substance—every mineral,
plant, animal, in fact every part of them, or every preparation
derived from  a preceding one, produces a series of peculiar
effects upon the human organism, manifestly belongs to the
natural sciences, and only so far to the materia medica as the
latter calls these properties into requisition.  But it is a science
in itself,—a science which treats of the effect  of a diversity of
substances upon the human frame.   Whether such a science,
in point of fact, be  capable  of formation, and whether it have
any value,  can be determined only  by  experiment.  It  were
equally foolish to deny this  without  trial, as it was formerly to
deny, without exploring, the way which Columbus opened to the
west.  It would be inexcusable in the present condition of the
materia medica, confessedly imperfect, and deficient in all the
attributes of a science, to despise this  new way of Hahnemann,
before knowing, by careful experiment, that  it conducts  to no-
thing better.
  The doctrine of the preparation of  the remedies into the so
called dilutions, belongs to natural philosophy, in common with
the doctrines of magnetism,  electricity, and galvanism.   Nor is
it more a subject of wonder than the  latter—except  that these
sooner came under investigation by the natural philosopher.
The repetition of the new electro-magnetic experiments requires
great accuracy  ; those concerning  the  operation   of minute
doses require just as much,  nay even more.   To  deny the re-
sults of the electro-magnetic experiments, previous to repeating
them, were  ridiculous, and it is equally so to deny the results of 
XIV
these.  But no hasty, superficial, partial, or wholly perverted
experiments, must be instituted.
  The doctrine that such dilutions or potences are capable of
curing diseases  according to the law  " similia similibus," is  a
proposition which belongs to biology, and there finds its con-
firmation ;  it likewise can only be investigated by experiment,
and cannot be estimated without it.
  The cautious  investigator will  not  pass judgment  upon all
these  discoveries,  until he shall  have performed a  series of
rigorous experiments.  Then only will he be prepared either to
reject or accept the method founded thereon, or, at least, learn
the useful part of it.

                      II.—DIRECTIONS.
  These appertain to the method  of cure, are derived  from the
long continued application of  the law previously referred to,
and acquire their principal value  from its truth.   No one can
judge of them but he who has tested the truth  of the experi-
mental propositions, and in doing so, adhered to these directions.
By  this means only can he  become  convinced of their great
value, which is entirely lost on those who deny the discoveries.
  We enumerate under this head, directions  for the  examina-
tion of the sick, for the preparation of the medicines, for trying
them on the healthy subject, for the  selection of the remedies,
dietetics, and directions for the psychical treatment.

                    III.—ILLUSTRATIONS.
  Hahnemann has  appended certain theories  to  the laws of
nature discovered  by him, by which these laws  are illustrated
and brought into unison with other laws already acknowledged,
or with other theories received as true.   This  has never been
reckoned a subject of reproach to  any discoverer.   Man will
and must seek to illustrate the phenomena which he  observes,
and bring individual parts into co-aptation—the new into har-
mony with that previously known.  In this endeavour, not only
is he liable to  err, but actually does err in the great majority of
cases; accordingly, few hypotheses and attempts at explanation 
XV
have endured long, and it  is a fact of daily acknowledgment,
that one hypothesis gives place to  another in all sciences.
Columbus  himself  entertained numerous  conjectures which
time has  verified  or  overthrown.   Whether the  theories of
Hahnemann are destined to endure a longer or a shorter space,
whether they be the best or not, time only can determine ; be it
as it may, however, it is a matter of minor importance.  For my-
self, I am generally considered as a disciple and adherent of
Hahnemann, and I do indeed declare that I  am one among
the most enthusiastic in doing homage to his greatness; but
nevertheless I  declare also, that since  my first acquaintance
with homoeopathy, (in the year 1821,) down to the present day,
I have never yet accepted a single theory in the Organon as it
is there promulgated.  I feel no  aversion to acknowledge this
even to the venerable sage  himself.  It is the genuine  Hahne-
mannean spirit totally to disregard all theories, even those of
one's own fabrication, when they are in opposition to the results of
pure experience. All theories and hypotheses have  no  positive
weight whatever, only so far as  they lead to new experiments,
and afford a better survey of the results of those already made.
   Whoever, therefore, will  assail the theories of Hahnemann, or
even altogether reject them, is at perfect liberty to do  so; but
let him not imagine  that  he  has thereby  accomplished a me-
morable achievement.  In every respect it is an affair  of little
importance.

                       IV.—DEFENCES.
   Opinions upon this head are also things of secondary conside-
ration, inasmuch as the  entire polemical matter is of subordinate
estimation in forming a judgment concerning  new discoveries.
Had Hahnemann the right to defend  himself as he has  done,
and thereby promote the progress of his doctrine,  or had he
not ?   We cannot  judge concerning it, but justly commit the
decision of the  question to future history.  The entire polemical
part may be stricken out, without in the slightest degree changing
the principal matters, or without having any influence either to
ratify or invalidate the doctrine itself. 
XV1
  Is there  a physician who feels  that individual expressions
will apply to him, let him take heed to the truth ; but if they do
not reach him, then  is he unaffected by them.   He who is
offended at the polemical part, let him reflect that it is the first
step towards an unjust estimate of the rest.
  A just judgment is all that we wish from every reader of the
Organon, and  to contribute something to this  end was the de-
sign of these preliminary remarks.
                                  CONSTANTINE HeRING.
Academy at Allentown, Penn., August 10, 1836. 
CONTENTS.
                              INTRODUCTION.


 A view of  the prevailing alteopathic  and palliative medical treatment to the
    present time.       ...........g
 Examples of homoeopathic cures performed unintentionally by physicians of the
    old school of medicine.......,    ...    45
 Persons ignorant of the science of medicine, discovered that the homoeopathic
    treatment was the most rational and efficacious......73
 Some physicians of an early period suspected that this curative method was
    superior  to every other.      .........75

                         ORGANON  OF MEDICINE.

 § 1, 2. The sole duty of a  physician  is,  to restore health in a mild, prompt,
    and durable manner.
 Note.   It does not  pertain to his office to  invent systems, or vainly attempt to
   account for the morbid phenomena in disease......79
 § 3, 4. The physician ought to search after that which is to be cured in disease,
   and be acquainted with the curative  virtues of medicines, in order to adapt
   the  medicine  to the disease.  He must also be acquainted with the means
   of preserving  health..........79, 80
 § 5. In the  cure of disease it is necessary to regard the fundamental cause and
   other circumstances...........ib.
 §  6. For the physician, the totality of the symptoms  alone constitutes the
   disease.       ............     ib.
 Note.  The  fruitless endeavours of the old school to discover the essence of the
   disease, the prima causa morbi.
 § 7. To cure disease,  it is merely  requisite to remove the entire symptoms,
   duly regarding, at the same  time, the circumstances enumerated in § 5.      81
 Note. 1.  The cause which evidently occasions and maintains the disease must
   likewise be removed...........ib.
 Note 2.  A  symptomatic palliative method  of treatment, or  that directed
   against an individual symptom, ought to be rejected.....82
§ 8. When all the symptoms are extinguished, the disease is at the same time
   internally  cured.........,   .     .     ib,
Note.   This  is ignoruntly denied by the old school.
         C 
xvm
                                                                         Page
 § 9. During health, the system  is animated by a spiritual, self-moved, vital
   power, which preserves it in harmonious order......83
 § 10. Without this vital, dynamic power, the organism is dead.       .    .    ib.
 § 11. In disease, the vital power only is primarily disturbed, and expresses its
   sufferings (internal changes) by abnormal alterations in the sensations  and
   actions of the system.   ..........    to.
 Note.   To know how the symptoms are produced by the vital power, is unne-
   cessary for the purposes of cure.
 § 12. By the extinction of the totality of the symptoms in the  process of cure,
   the suffering of the vital power, that is, the entire morbid affection, inwardly
   and outwardly, is removed..........ib.
 § 13. To presume that disease (non-chirurgical) is a peculiar and distinct
   something, residing in man, is a conceit, which has rendered  allceopathy so
   pernicious.............84
 § 14. Every curable disease is made known to the physician by its symptoms,  ib.
 § 15. The sufferings of the deranged vital power, and the morbid symptoms
   produced  thereby, as an invisible whole, one and the same.    .     .    .     ib.
 § 16. It is only by means of the spiritual influence of a morbific agent, that our
   spiritual vital  power, can be  diseased, and in like manner, only  by the  spi-
   ritual (dynamic) operation of medicine, that health can be restored.         85
 § 17. The physician  has only to remove the totality of the symptoms and he
   has cured the  entire disease.........         ib.
 Note 1,  2.  Explanatory examples.
 § 18. The totality of the symptoms is the sole indication in the  choice of the
   remedy.       ............     86
 § 19. Changes in the general state, in disease, (symptoms of  disease) can be
   cured in no other way, by medicines, than in so far as the latter possess the
   power, likewise, of affecting changes in the system.                        ib.
 § 20. This faculty  which medicines  have of producing changes in the system,
   can only be known by observing their effects upon healthy individuals.       ib.
 § 21. The morbid  symptoms which  medicines produce in healthy persons are
   the sole indications of their curative virtues in disease.....ib.
 § 22. If experience prove that the medicines which produce symptoms similar
   to those of the disease, are the therapeutic agents that cure it in the most
   certain and permanent manner,  we ought to select these  medicines in  the
   cure of the disease.   If, on the contrary, it proves that the most certain and
   permanent cure is obtained by medicinal substances that produce symptoms
   directly opposite to those of the  disease, then the latter agents ought to be
   selected for this purpose.      .......              87
 Note. The  use  of medicines, whose  symptoms bear no peculiar (affective)
   relation to the morbid symptoms, but influence the body in a different way,
   is the exceptionable allosopathic  mode of treatment.
 § 23. Morbid symptoms that  are inveterate  cannot be cured  by medicinal
   symptoms of an opposite character (antipathic method).        ...     88
§ 24, 25. The homeopathic method, or that which employs medicines producing
   symptoms similar to those of the malady, is the only one of which experi-
  ence proves the certain efficacy.......              $
§ 26. This is grounded upon  the  therapeutic law of nature, that a weaker
  dynamic affection in man is  permanently  extinguished by one that is simi-
   lar, of greater  intensity, yet of a different origin.....         £9 
XIX
                                                                         Page
Note.  This law applies to physical as well moral affections.
§ 27.  The curative virtues  of  medicines depend solely upon  the resemblance
  that their symptoms bear to those of the disease......90
§ 28, 29. Some explanation of this therapeutic law of nature.    ...    it.
Note.  Illustration of it.
§ 30—33. The human body is much more prone to undergo derangement from
  the action of medicines than from that of natural disease.                91, 92
§ 34, 35. The truth of the homoeopathic law is shown by the inefficacy of non-
  homoeopathic treatment in the cure of diseases that are of long standing
  and likewise by the fact that either of two natural dissimilar diseases  co-
  existing in the body, cannot annihilate or cure the other.     .     .      92, 93
§ 36,  I. A disease, existing in  the human body, prevents the accession of a new
  and dissimilar one, if the former be  of equal intensity to, or greater, than  the
  latter..............ib.
§ 37.  Thus, non-homoeopathic treatment, which is not  violent,  leaves  the
  chronic disease unaltered..........ib.
§ 38,  II. Or, a new and more intense  disease suspends a prior and dissimilar
  one, already existing in the body, only so long as the former continues,  but
  it never cures it...........93—95
§ 39.  In the same manner, violent treatment  with alloeopathic remedies never
  cures a chronic disease, but merely suspends it during  the  continuance of
  the powerful action of a medicine  incapable of exciting symptoms similar
  to those of the disease, but afterwards, the latter reappears even more intense
  than before............95—97
§ 40,  III. Or, the new disease, after  having  acted for a considerable time on
  the system, joins itself finally to the old one, which is dissimilar, and thence
  results a complication of two different maladies, either of which is incapable
  of annihilating or curing the other.......97, 98
§ 41.  Much more frequently  than a superadded natural disease, an  artificial
  one, which is occasioned by the long continued use of violent and unsuitable
  alloeopathic remedies, is combined with the dissimilar prior and natural
  disease (the dissimilarity consequently rendering  it incurable by means of
  the artificial malady), and the  patient becomes doubly diseased.     .     .    98
§ 42.  The diseases thus complicated  by reason of their  dissimilarity, assume
  different places in  the organism to  which they are severally adapted.        99
§ 43, 44. But very different is the result,  where a new disease that is similar
  and stronger is superadded to the old one,  for in that case the former  anni-
  hilates and cures the latter.       .......100—101
§ 45.  This phenomenon explained.........ib.
§ 46.  Examples of the cure of chronic diseases, by the accidental accession of
  another disease, similar and more intense......101—103
§ 47—49. Of any two diseases, which occur in the ordinary course of nature,
  it is only that one whose symptoms are similar to the other, which can cure
  or destroy it.  This faculty never  belongs to a dissimilar disease.  Hence
  the physician may learn what are the remedies with which he can effect a
  certain cure, that is to say, with none but such as are homoeopathic.    103,104
§ 50.  Nature affords but few instances in which one disease can homoeopathi-
  cally destroy another, and her  remedial resources in  this way are encum-
  bered by many inconveniences.........ib. 
XX
 § 51. On the other hand, the physician is possessed of innumerable curative
   agents, greatly preferable to those........105
 § 52. From the process employed by nature, to which we have just adverted,
   the physician may deduce the doctrine of curing diseases by no other reme-
   dies than  such as are homoeopathic, and  not with those of another  kind,
   (alloeopathic), which never cure, but only injure the patient.        .     .     ib.
 & 53, 54. There are only three possible methods of employing medicines in
   disease, vi?.
      I.  The homoeopathic,  which only  is salutary and efficacious.     .     .    106
 § 55, II. The allwopathic or heteropathic........ib.
 § 56, III. The antipathic or enantiopalhic, which is merely palliative.          107
 Note.  Remarks on Isopathy, so called.
 § 57..An exposition of the method of cure where a remedy producing a con-
   trary  effect (contraria contrariis) is prescribed  against a single symptom of
   the disease.—Examples..........ib.
 § 58. This antipathic  method is not merely defective because it is directed
   against an individual symptom only, but  also, because  in  chronic diseases
   after having apparently diminished the evil for a time, this temporary abate-
   ment  is followed by a real aggravation of the symptoms.     .     .     .    108
 Note.  Testimonies of different authors.
 § 59. Injurious consequences of some antipathic cures.     .    .     .   109—111
 § 60. Where a palliative is employed, the gradual increase of the dose never
   cures  a chronic disease,  but renders  the state of the patient worse.            ib.
 § 61. Wherefore, physicians ought to have  inferred the utility of  an opposite,
   and the only beneficial method, namely, that of homoeopathy.       .     .     ib.
 § 62. The reason that the palliative method is so pernicious, and  the homoeo-
   pathic alone salutary...........112
 § 63. Is  founded upon the difference which exists between the primary action
   of every medicine, and the reaction, or secondary effects, produced by the
,.,  living organism (the vital power).       .......ib.
 § 64. Explanation of the primitive and secondary effects.....to.
 § 65. Examples of both...........U3
 § 66. It  is only by the use  of the minutest homoeopathic doses, that the  reac-
   tion of the vital power shows itself simply by restoring the equilibrium of
•i-  health..........,    ...     to.
 § 67. From these facts, the salutary tendency of the homoeopathic, as well as
   the adverse effects of the antipathic (palliative) method, become manifest.    114
 Note.  Cases in which only antipathic remedies are yet only useful.
 § 68. How far these facts prove the efficacy of the homoeopathic method.         ib.
 § 69. How  these  facts  confirm  the injurious tendency of the  antipathic
   method,      •••>.....              115__117
 Note 1. Contrary sensations cannot neutralise each other  in the sensorium of
   man ;  they do not react  upon each other like chemical  substances that are
   endowed with opposite properties.
 Note 2. Explanatory example.
 § 70. A  short analysis of the homoeopathic method......117
 § 71. The three necessary points in healing, are:—1. To ascertain the malady;
   2. The action of the medicines; and 3. Their appropriate application.        118
 § 72. A  general view of acute and chronic diseases......j0< 
XXI
                                                                        Page
§ 73. Acute diseases which are isolated—sporadic, epidemic, acute miasms.    119
§ 74. The worst species of chronic diseases are those produced by the unskil-
  ful treatment of alloeopathic physicians.      ......120
§ 75. These are the most difficult of cure.......ib.
§ 76. It is only as there is sufficient vital power yet remaining in the system,
  that the injury inflicted by the abuse of alloeopathic medicines can be re-
  paired ; to restore the patient often requires a long  time, and  the simulta-
  neous  removal of the original malady........121
§ 77. Diseases that  are improperly termed chronic......ib.
§ 78. Diseases that  properly  claim that appellation, and which all arise from
  chronic miasms............ib.
§ 79. Syphilis and sycosis..........122
§ 80, 81. Psora is the parent of all chronic diseases, properly so called, with
  the exception of the syphilitic and sycosic......122—125
Note.   The names given to diseases in ordinary pathology.
§ 82. Every case of chronic disease demands the careful selection of a remedy
  from among the specifics that have been discovered against chronic miasms,
  particularly against psora..........125
§ 83. Qualifications necessary for comprehending the image of the disease.     ib.
§ 84—99. Directions to the physician for discovering and tracing out an image
  of the  disease...........126—132
§ 100—102. Investigation of epidemic diseases in particular.    .    .    .    133
§ 103.  In like manner must the source of chronic dieascs (not syphilitic) be
  investigated and the entire image of psora be brought into  view.           134
§ 104.  The utility of noting down in manuscript the image of the  disease at
  the commencement and during the progress of the treatment.     .    .    135
Note.  How physicians of the old school proceed in their examination of the
  morbid symptoms.
§ 105—114. Preliminaries to be observed in  investigating the pure effects of
  medicines in the  healthy  human  subject.  Primary  effect.  Secondary
  effect.............135—139
§ ] 15.  Alternative effects of medicines........ib.
§ 116,  117.  Idiosyncrasies..........140
§ 118, 119. Every medicine produces effects  different from others.  .    .    141
Note.  One medicine cannot be substituted for another.
§ 120.  Every medicine must therefore be carefully tried as to  the peculiarities
  of its effects............142
§ 121—140. Course  to be adopted  in trying medicines upon other  indivi-
  duals.............142-149
§ 141.  The experiments which a physician in health makes in his own person
  are preferable to others..........*°-
§ 142.  The investigation of the pure effects of medicines by their administra-
  tion in disease, is difficult..........150
§ 143—145. It is by investigating the pure effects of medicines in the healthy
  subject only, that a true materia medica can be framed.      .    .    150, 151
§ 146. The most appropriate remedial employment of medicines whose pecu-
  liar effects are known.       .........152
§ 147.  That medicine which is the most homoeopathically adapted, is the most
  beneficial, and is  the specific remedy........**■ 
XX11
                                                                         Page
 § 148.  Intimation how a homoeopathic cure is probably effected.     .     .    153
 § 149.  The homoeopathic cure of a disease of rapid origin is quickly effected,
   but the cure of a chronic one requires proportionably a longer time.   153, 154
 Note.  The distinction between  pure  homoeopathy and the doctrines of the
   mongrel  set.
 § 150.  Slight indispositions..........154
 § 151.  Severe diseases exhibit a variety of symptoms.....ib.
 § 152.  A disease with numerous and striking symptoms admits of finding the
   homoeopathic remedy with more certainty.        .....155
 § 153.  What kind of symptoms ought chiefly to be regarded in selecting the
   remedy.............l0-
 § 154.  A remedy that is perfectly homoeopathic, cures the disease without any
   accompanying ill effects.     .........     ib.
 § 155.  The reason why homoeopathic cures are thus effected.             .    156
 § 156.  Reason of the few exceptions thereto.......to.
 § 157—160. The medicinal disease, closely resembling, but rather more in-
   tense than the primitive one, called also homoeopathic aggravation.     156, 157
 § 161.  In chronic (psoric) diseases, the aggravation produced by homoeopathic
   remedies (anti-psorics), occurs  from time to time, during several days.      158
'§ 162—171. Measures to  be pursued in the treatment, when the number of
   known medicines is too small to admit of finding a remedy that is perfectly
   homoeopathic...........158—161
 § 172—184. Measures to be taken in the treatment of diseases that have too
   few symptoms, (einseitige krankheilen)......161—163
 § 185—203. The treatment of diseases with  local symptoms; their cure by
   means of external applications is always injurious.     .     .     .    163—169
 § 204, 205.  All diseases properly chronic, and not arising or being supported
   merely by bad modes of living, ought to be treated by homoeopathic reme-
   dies  appropriate to their originating  miasm, and solely by the internal ad-
   ministration of those remedies........170,171
 § 206.  Preliminary search after the simple miasm which  forms  the basis of
   the malady, or of its complication with  a  second (sometimes even with a
   third.).............,-0.
 § 207.  Enquiries to be made respecting the treatment previously adopted.     172
 § 208, 209.  Other enquiries necessary to be made, before a perfect image can
   be formed of a chronic disease........172,173
 § 210—230. Treatment of mental diseases......173—180
 § 231, 232.  Intermittent and alternating diseases......ib.
 § 233, 234.  Typical intermittent diseases.......181
 § 235—244. Intermittent  fevers........181—186
 §245—251. The mode of administering the remedies.    .    .     .    186—192
 Note.  Repetition of doses.
 § 252—256. The signs of incipient amendment.....193__195
 § 257, 258.  Blind predilection for favourite  remedies, and unjust  aversion to
   others.      ............198
 § 259—261. The regimen proper  in chronic diseases.     .    .     .    195__196
 Note.  Things that are prejudicial therein.
 § 262, 263.  Regimen in acute  diseases.......         196
 § 264—266. On the choice of the purest and most energetic medicines.       197 
XXU1
                                                                       Page
Note.   Changes produced in some substances in the process of preparing them
  for food.
§ 267. The mode of preparing the most energetic and durable medicines from
  fresh herbs.       ...........198
§ 268. Dry vegetable substances.........199
§,269—271. The homoeopathic method of preparing  crude medicinal  sub-
  stances, in order to obtain their greatest medicinal power.    .     .    199, 200
Note.   Preparation of powder for keeping.
§ 272—274. Only one simple medicine is to be administered at a time.        201
§ 275—287. Strength.of the doses used in homoeopathic treatment.  The man-
  ner of graduating  them, or of augmenting  or diminishing their power.
  The developcment of their powers.......202—208
§ 288—292. What parts of the body are more or less sensible to the action of
  medicines.............*"•
Note.  Receiving the highly developed medicines by inhalation  or smelling,
  is the preferable mode of using them.
§ 293, 294.  Animal magnetism (Mesmerism).  On the application  of positive
  and negative mesmerism.........210, 211 
 
INTRODUCTION.
 A VIEW OP THE PREVAILING MEDICAL TREATMENT, ALLC30-
       PATHIC AND PALLIATIVE, TO THE PRESENT TIME.

   From the earliest period of time, mankind have been liable
 to disease,  individually and collectively, arising  from causes
 natural and moral.  In the rude and simple forms of primitive
 life, few  maladies  appeared, and little skill was  requisite  to
 remove them;  but as society became more  dense, and  men
 formed themselves  into states, diseases multiplied,  and medical
 aid became, in the same degree, necessary.
   Thenceforward, at least after the days of Hippocrates, during
 a lapse of nearly two thousand  five hundred years, men have
 fondly supposed, that  these multiplied  and complicated mala-
 dies were  to be removed by  methods originating  purely  in
 scheming and conjecture.  Innumerable opinions on the nature
 and cure of diseases, have successively been promulged; each
 distinguishing his own theory with the title of system, though
 directly at variance  with every other and inconsistent with
 itself.
   Each of these refined productions dazzled the reader at first
 with its unintelligible display of wisdom, and  attracted to the
 system-builder crowds of adherents,  echoing his unnatural
 sophistry,  but from which none of them could derive any im-
 provement in the art of healing, until a new system, frequently
 in direct opposition to the former, appeared, supplanting it, and for
 a season acquiring celebrity.  Yet none were in harmony with
 nature and experience—mere theories  spun out of a refined
 imagination, from apparent consequences, which, on account
 of their subtilty and contradictions, were practically inapplica-
 ble at the bedside of the patient, and only fitted for idle dispu-
 tation.
  By the  side of these theories, but unconnected with them all,
a mode of cure was contrived, with medical substances of un- 
10
 known quality compounded together, applied to diseases arbi-
trarily classified, and arranged in reference to their materiality,
 called Allozopathia.   The pernicious results of  such a practice,
 at variance with nature and experience, may be easily imagined.
   Without seeking to detract from the  reputation which many
 physicians have justly acquired by their skill  in the sciences
 auxiliary to medicine, such as Natural Philosophy, Chemistry,
 Natural History in all its branches, and that of man in particu-
 lar, Anthropology,  Physiology, Anatomy, &c. &c,  I  shall
 occupy myself here with the practical part of Medicine only, in
 order  to show the imperfect  manner in which  diseases have
 been treated  till  the present day.  It is  also  far  from my
 intention to  pursue  that  mechanical  routine  by which the
 precious lives of our fellow creatures are treated according to
 pocket-book recipes,  volumes of which are still daily appearing
 before the public, and show, alas ! how frequently, and to what
 extent, they are resorted to even at the present time.  I turn
 from these, as undeserving of notice, and as a lasting reproach
 to the Faculty of Medicine.   I shall merely speak of the Medi-
 cal Art, such as it has existed till  the present day, and which,
 on account of its antiquity,  is supposed to be  founded upon
 scientific principles.
   It was the boast of the former schools of medicine, that their
 doctrine alone deserved the title of " rational  art  of healing"
 because  it was pretended  that they alone  sought after  and
 removed the morbid cause, and followed  the traces of nature her-
 self in diseases.
   Tolle causam ! cried they continually; but that was all: they
 seldom went  farther than that vain exclamation.  They talked
 of being able to discover the cause of disease, without succeed-
 ing in their pretended attempts; for, by far the  greater number
 of diseases being of dynamic origin, as well as of a dynamic
 nature, and their cause, therefore, not  admitting of discovery
 to  the senses, they were reduced to the* necessity of inventing
 one.   By comparing, on the one hand,  the normal state of the
 parts of the dead human body (anatomy)  with the visible chano-es
 which those parts had undergone in subjects that had died of
 disease,  (pathological anatomy,) and on  the other, the functions
 of the living body (physiology)  with the endless  aberrations to
 which they are subject in the various stages of disease, (semeiotics, 
11
pathology,) and  drawing from thence conclusions, relative  to
the invisible manner in which the changes are brought about
in the interior of man, when in a  diseased state, they succeeded
in forming an obscure and imaginary picture,  which theoretic
medicine regarded as the prima causa morbi* which afterwards
became  the nearest cause, and, at the same time, the immediate
essence of the disease, and even the disease itself;  although com-
mon sense  tells us, that the cause of any thing can never be, at
the same time, both the cause and the thing itself.
   How  was it  then possible, without deceiving themselves, to
pretend  to cure this yet  undiscovered internal  cause, or ven-
ture to  prescribe  for  it  medicines, whose  curative  tendency
was equally for the most part unknown to them,  and  more
especially, to mix up several of those unknown substances  in
what we term prescriptions ?
   However the sublime  project, of discovering,  a priori,  some
internal invisible cause of disease, resolved itself (at least among
some self-conceited physicians of the old school) into a search,


  * It would have been far more suitable to the good sense of mankind,
and to the nature of the case, had they,  in order  to cure, attempted to
discover  as  the causa morbi the originating cause of the disease itself,
and had applied a method of treatment which they had found available
for diseases  springing from  that  originating cause, and for others of a
like origin.  For example, the same hydrargyrum  is properly applied to
every ulcer on the glans penis, after an impure coition, as hitherto with
every venereal chancre—if they,  I say, had discovered the originating
cause of every other chronic (non-venereal) disease, either from a recent
or a former infection in a psoric miasm; if for all these they had found
a method of  cure,  with a therapeutic  reference to  each particular case,
by which the whole and each separate chronic case could  have been
healed; then might they with justice have gained renown, that they
in the treatment of chronic diseases were familiar with the only useful
and successful causa morborum  chronicorum (non venereorum,) and
adopting  it as a basis, were capable of treating such cases with the best
results.   But they were incapable of curing the numberless chronic
diseases in ages past,  as their psoric  origin was unknown to them, (a
discovery which the world owes to homceopathia, as well as for an effec-
tual method  of treatment which it has provided,)  and notwithstanding
their vaunting that they alone had the primam causam in view in their
proceeding; after all their boasted science they had not the remotest sus-
picion of  their psoric  origin, and consequently every chronic disease
has been  mangled. 
12
guided onward by the symptoms,  after that  which they might
presume to be the generic  character of the existing  malady.*
They endeavoured to find  out whether it was spasm, debility,
or  paralysis,  fever  or  inflammation, induration or  obstruc-
tion, in  some one of the parts ; excess of blood, (plethora,) or
increase or deficiency of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, or nitrogen,
in the fluids; exaltation or depression  of vitality in the arterial,
venous, or capillary system; a defect of relative proportion in
the factors of sensibility, of irritability, or of nutrition.  These
conjectures, honoured by the existing  school with the name of
Causal  Indication, and regarded by them as the only rational
part of medicine, were too hypothetical and  fallacious, to be
of any permanent utility in practice, and insufficient (even if
they had any just foundation) to  point out  the best remedy in
any particular case of disease.  It is  true, they were flattering
to the self-love of the  learned inventor, but acting on them only
led him farther  astray, and  showed that there was more of
ostentation in the  pursuit  than any reasonable hope of being
able to profit by it, or arrive at the real curative indication.
  How often has it occurred, that spasm or paralysis appeared
to be in  one part of  the system, while inflammation seemed to
be in another?
   On the other hand, where  should we be able to procure cer-
tain remedies against each of these pretended general characters
of diseases? There could be none, save those which are termed
specifics, that is to say, medicines  homogeneous to the  morbid
irritation, (now called homoeopathic,) and whose application has
been prohibited by the old school of medicine, as being highly
dangerous,! because experience proved that the use of them in

  * Every physician  adopting a treatment of such a general character,
however unblushingly he may affect to be an homoeopathist,  is and will
always remain a generalising allceopathist, as without the most special
individualisation, homceopathia has no meaning.
  f " In cases where experience had revealed the homoeopathic efficacy
of medicines, whose mode of operation, however, was inexplicable, the
physicians made use of them, and relieved themselves from all further
embarrassment by  declaring them to be specific.  Thus, by an unmean-
ing name that was applied to them,  all necessity for further reflection  -
was superseded.  But homogeneous excitements, that is to say, specifics
or homoeopathies, had,  for a long time previously, been forbidden, as
exercising an extremely dangerous influence." Ran, Ueberdashomceop.
Heilverfahren Heidelberg, 1824. p. 101, 102. 
13
such  powerful doses as had been  usually  administered  was
pernicious in maladies where the aptitude to undergo homceoge-
neous irritation existed to a great extent.  Besides this, the old
school never once thought of administering those medicines in
very small or in extremely minute doses.  Thus,  no one ven-
tured to cure in the direct  and most natural way, by using
homogeneous and specific medicines, nor was it possible to do
so, because the fullest extent of their effects was unknown, and
in that state remained, and had it been otherwise, it would have
been  impossible to have guessed out remedies so very applica-
ble by such generalising opinions.
   However, the old school of medicine, aware that it was more
consistent with reason to pursue a  straightforward path than
attempt a circuitous one, still imagined they could arrest disease
by a  removal of the supposed morbid material cause. In the theo-
retic  researches after the image which they were  to form to
themselves of  the  disease,  as well  as in  their pursuit  of the
curative indication, it was almost  impossible for  them to divest
themselves of this idea of materiality, or be induced to consider
the nature not only of material but spiritual organism, as being
so potent in itself that the changes in its sensations and vital
movements (which are called diseases) are principally,  and
almost solely, the result of dynamic  influence, and could not be
produced by any other cause.
   The  old school  regarded all the solids and fluids which had
become changed by disease, (those  in-normal substances, tur-
gescent or secreted,) as the exciting  cause of the  disorder; or,
at least, on account of their supposed  reaction, they were con-
sidered to be the cause which kept up disease, and this latter
opinion is adhered to, even at the present day.
   This theory first inspired them with the idea of accomplish-
ing causal cure, by using every means in their power to expel
from  the body that imaginary and supposed material cause of
disease.  Hence arises the continual practice of evacuating bile
in cases of bilious fever* by emetics,—the system  of prescribing

   * The Court Physician, Rau, (loc. cit. p. 176), at a time when he was
not yet fully initiated into homoeopathic medicine, but when, however,
he entertained a perfect conviction of the  dynamic origin of these fevers,
was in the habit of curing them without any evacuating medicines what-
ever, merely by one or two small doses of homoeopathic medicines. In
his work, he relates two remarkable instances  of cure. 
14
 vomits in the so-named foul stomach,*—the diligence in purging
 away mucus and intestinal worms, where there is paleness of the
 countenance, ravenous appetite, pains in the stomach, or intu-

   * In a sudden affection of the stomach, with frequentvnauseous eructa-
 tions,  as of spoiled food, (sulphuretted hydrogen,) accompanied with
 depression of mind, cold  at the feet, hands, &c, physicians, till the pre-
 sent time, were in the habit of attending only to the  degenerated  con-
 tents of  the stomach.  A powerful emetic must fetch it  out entirely.
 This object was usually effected by  the use of tartrate of antimony,
 with or without a mixture of ipecacuanha.  But  did the patient  recover
 his health  as soon as he  had vomited ?  No! these gastric affections of
 dynamic origin are commonly produced  by a disturbed state of mind,
 (grief, fright, anger,)  cold, exertion of the mind or body  immediately
 after eating, and  sometimes  even after a temperate enjoyment of food.
 Neither the tartrate of antimony,  nor the ipecacuanha, are suited to the
 purpose  of removing this dynamic aberration,  and the  revolutionary
 vomiting which they excite is equally unserviceable. Besides provoking
 a manifestation of the symptoms of disease, they strike one blow more
 at the health of the patient, and the secretion of bile becomes deranged;
 so that if the patient did not happen to  be of a robust constitution before,
 he  must feel  greatly indisposed  for several days after the pretended
 causal cure, notwithstanding the violent expulsion of the entire contents
 of the  stomach.  But if, instead of those  powerful and oft injurious
 evacuating medicines, the patient should only smell  once to a globule
 of  sugar the size of  a mustard  seed,  impregnated with  the thirtieth
 dilution of Pulsatilla,  which infallibly restores the order and harmony
 of the whole system, and that of the stomach in particular, then he is
 cured in  the space of two hours. If any  eructations still take place, they
 are nothing more than air, without taste or smell; the contents of the
 stomach are no longer vitiated, and at the next meal the patient recovers
 his accustomed appetite, his health, and his air of repose.  This is what
 ought to be denominated "real cure," because it has destroyed the cause.
 The other is an imaginary one, and only fatigues  and does injury to the
 patient.
  Even a stomach overloaded with indigestible  food  never requires a
 medicinal emetic.  In such a case, nature knows  full well  how  to  dis-
 encumber herself of the excess, by the spontaneous vomitings which she
 excites, and which may at all times be aided by mechanical provocation,
 such as tickling the  fauces.   By  this  means we avoid the accessary
 effects  which result from the operation of emetics, and a little  coffee
 (without milk) afterwards suffices to hasten the passage of any matters
 into the intestines, which the stomach may still contain.
  But if, after having been rilled beyond measure, the stomach does not
 possess, or has lost the  irritability necessary to  produce  spontaneous
 vomiting; and the patient, tormented by acute pain of the  epigastrium,
does not experience the  slightest desire  to vomit, in  such a state an ' 
15
mescence of the belly in children,* the letting of blood in cases of
hemorrhage,! and especially bleeding of all kinds,{ as their chief
indication in inflammatory cases, and, in imitation of a blood-

emetic would  only cause a dangerous or mortal inflammation of the
intestines; whereas, slight and repeated  doses of a strong infusion of '
coffee, would reanimate  the depressed irritability of the  stomach,  and
place it in a condition to evacuate of itself, either upwards or down-
wards, the substances contained in its interior, however considerable the
quantity may have been.  Here,  again, the treatment  which ordinaiy
physicians pretend to direct against the cause, is out of place.
  It is the custom, at the present day, when gastric acid becomes super-
abundant, (which is frequently the case in chronic diseases,) to adminis-
ter an emetic to relieve the stomach of its  presence. But the following
morning, or a few days after, the stomach contains just the same quantity,
if not more.  On the  other hand the pains cease of themselves, when
their dynamic  cause  is attacked  by an extremely small dose of dilute
sulphuric acid, or with another antipsoric remedy, homoeopathic with
the various symptoms.  It is thus that, in the plans of treatment, which
the  old school say are directed against the morbific cause, the favourite
object is to expel with trouble, and to the great detriment of the  patient,
the  material product of the dynamic disorder, without exerting them-
selves in the least to find out the dynamic  source of the evil, in order to
vanquish it homoeopathically, as well as to annihilate every thing  that
might emanate from it, and thus treat the disease in a rational manner.
   * Symptoms that depend solely upon a psoric  diathesis, and which
easily yield to (dynamic) mild antipsoric remedies, without either emetics
or purgatives.
   t Though most morbid hemorrhages  depend  solely on  a dynamic
change of the vital powers, still the old school assign a superabundance
of blood as their cause, and never fail to prescribe bleeding, in order to.
relieve the body of this supposed excess of the juice of life.  The  dis-
astrous consequences which  frequently result from this mode of treat-
ment, such as prostration of the powers, tendency to, and even  typhoid
state itself, they ascribe to the malignity of the disease, which they are
then often unable to subdue: in short, though the patient may fall a
sacrifice, they, nevertheless, consider that they have acted in conformity
to the adage, causam tolle, that is, according to  their common remark^
" we have done every thing that  could possibly be done—let the conse-
quence now be what it may !!"
  X Though the living human body may, perhaps, never have contained
one drop  of blood too much, still the old school regard a supposed
plethora, or superabundance of blood, as  the  principal  material cause
of hemorrhages and inflammations, and which ought to be attacked by
bleeding,  cupping, and leeches.   This they  call a treatment of the
cause, and a rational mode of proceeding.   In fevers with an inflamma-
tory character, as well as in  acute pleurisy, they even go so far as tc 
16
thirsty physician of Paris, the application to the parts affected, of
a frequently fatal number of leeches.  By this mode of proceed-
ing, they think they pursue the causal indication, and treat the

regard the coagulable  lymph that exists in the blood, (and which they
call the buffy coat,) as the  peccant matter, which the-y do their best to
evacuate, as much as possible,  by repeated  bleedings, although it  often
occurs that  this crust  becomes thicker  and tougher in  appearance, at
every fresh emission of blood.   In  this manner, when inflammatory
fever cannot be subdued, they often bleed the patient  till he is near
death, in order to remove this buffy coat, or the pretended plethora,  with-
out ever suspecting that the inflamed blood is nothing more than the pro-
duct of  the acute fever, the inflammatory immaterial (dynamic) irrita-
tion ; and that this latter, the sole cause of the disturbance that has taken
place in the vascular system, may  be arrested by a homoeopathic remedy,
such, for example, as a globule of  sugar  impregnated with the juice of
aconite  of  the  decillionth  degree of dilution, avoiding  the  vegetable
acids; so that the most violent pleuritic fever,  with all its  attendant
alarming symptoms, is cured in the space of twenty-four  hours at far-
thest, without loss of blood, or  any antiphlogistic whatever, (if a little
blood, by way of experiment, be  now taken from the vein, it will no
longer exhibit  any traces  of  inflammatory crust,)  whereas, another
patient,  similar in every respect, and treated according to the pretended
rational mode of the old school,  if  he escape death after numerous
bleedings and  unspeakable suffering,  often   languishes  yet   entire
months, reduced and exhausted, before he can stand upright, if he is not
taken off in  the  interval (as is frequently the case) by a typhus fever, a
leucophlegmacy, or a pulmonary consumption, the common result of this
mode of treatment.
  He who feels the steady pulse of a patient an hour before the shivering
comes on, which always precedes acute pleurisy, will be much surprised
when, two hours after,  (the fever  having set in,)  they try to persuade
him that the violent plethora which then exists, makes repeated bleed-
ing necessary; and he asks himself, by what miracle could those pounds
of blood, which are now to be taken away, and which he had, two hours
before, felt beating with a tranquil movement, have effected an entrance
into the arteries of the  patient?  There  could not be an ounce of blood
more in his veins than  he possessed two hours before, when he  was in
good health.  Thus, when the alloeopathic physician prescribes venesec-
tion, it is not at all superfluous blood that he  draws  from  the patient
attacked with acute fever, because this liquid could not possibly exist in
too great quantity; but he deprives him of a portion of the normal blood
necessary to his existence, and to the  re-establishment  of  health;—a
grievous loss, which it is no longer  in his  power to repair, and he  thinks,
notwithstanding, to have acted according to the axiom tolle causam, to
which he gives  so wrong an  interpretation, whilst the sole and true
cause of the malady was, not a superabundance of blood, which could 
17
patient in a rational  manner.   They likewise suppose, that by
removing a polypus by ligature, extirpating  a tumefied gland,
or  destroying the  same by  suppuration, produced by  local
irritation, by dissecting out the insulated cyst of a steatomatous
or meliceretous tumour,  operating for aneurism, fistula lachry-
malis, or fistula in ano, amputating a cancerous breast,  or a
limb  where  the  bone  had  become  carious,  &c. &c. to  have
cured the  maladies in a radical manner, and destroyed  their
cause.   They imagine the  same  thing when they make use
of their repellent remedies, and dry up old ulcers in the  legs,
by astringents, oxides of lead, copper and zinc, accompanied, it
is true, with  purgatives, which only weaken, without diminish-
ing the fundamental evil;  when  they cauterise chancres, de-
stroy condylomata locally,  drive back  itch  from the skin, by
sulphur ointment,  lead,  mercury, or zinc; and, finally, when
they cure ophthalmy, with solutions of lead  or zinc, and drive
away pain from the members  by the use of opodeldoc,  volatile
liniment, or fumigations  of  cinnabar  and amber.  In all  such
cases, they think they have  annihilated  the evil,  triumphed
over  the disease, and performed a rational treatment directed
against  the  cause.   But mark what follows!  New forms of
diseases, which infallibly manifest themselves sooner or later,
and which,  when they  appear, are taken for fresh maladies,
being always  worse than  the primitive affection, evidently refute
the  theories  of  the  old school.  These  ought  to undeceive

never exist, but a dynamic inflammatory irritation of the vascular system,
as is proved by the permanent and speedy cure which may be effected in
similar cases,  by administering one or two  incredibly minute doses of
the  juice of aconite, which  is homoeopathic  with this  irritation.  The
old school err not less, in recommending partial bleedings, and still more
so, in  the application of leeches  in great numbers,  when treating  local
inflammation,  after the  manner  of Broussais.  The palliative  relief
which they afford at first, is not  crowned by a rapid or perfect cure ; the
weakness and  valetudinarian state to which the parts, that have  been
thus treated, remain a prey,  and sometimes even the whole body, suffi-
ciently prove how erroneous  it is to attribute local inflammation  to local
plethora; and  how deceitful are  the consequences of such bleedings,
when  this inflammatory irritation, apparently local,  can be  destroyed in
a prompt and permanent manner, by a small dose of aconite, or,  accord-
ing  to circumstances, of belladonna, a mode by which the malady is
speedily and effectively cured,  without having recourse to bleedings,
which nothing can justify.
       3 
18
them, and prove that the  evil has an immaterial cause,  the
deeper concealed, because its origin is dynamic, and it cannot
be destroyed but by dynamic power.
  An hypothesis,  which  the schools of medicine  generally
entertained until a recent date, (and, I might even say, until
the present time,)  is  that  of morbid or  peccant matter in
diseases, however  subtile that  matter may be supposed to be.
The blood and lymphatic vessels were to be disencumbered of
this matter by the exhalants, the  skin, the kidneys, and the
salivary glands ;  the  chest  was to be freed from it by  the
trachial and bronchial  glands; the stomach and  the  intestinal
canal by vomiting  and alvine dejections—to be able to say that
the body was cleansed of the material cause which excited the
disease, and that they had accomplished a radical cure accord-
ing to the principle—lolle causam!
  By incisions made in the diseased body, in which, for years
together, foreign substances are  inserted,  producing tedious
ulcers (issues and setons),  they would draw off the materia
peccans, from the (purely dynamically) diseased body, as dregs
escape by a faucet from a  filthy cask.  By perpetual blisters
(cantharides and mezereum), they  also think to abstract this
peccant matter, and thus thoroughly purify the system.   By
such  inconsiderate and unnatural  treatment, the exhausted
patient is commonly brought into a condition totally incurable.
  I grant it was more convenient for human incapacity to sup-
pose,  that in the maladies which presented themselves for cure,
there existed some morbid principle, of which the mind could
conceive the materiality, especially as the patients willingly lent
themselves to an  hypothesis of this kind.   By admitting this,
they had nothing further to do than to administer a sufficient
quantity of medicines  capable of purifying the blood and the
fluids, of exciting  urine and perspiration, promoting expectora-
tion, and scouring out  the stomach and intestines.  This is the
reason  that  all the authors on  materia medica, who have
appeared since Dioscorides up to the present day, say nothing
of the peculiar and special  action of individual  medicines, but
content themselves, after enumerating their supposed virtues in 
19
any particular case of disease, with saying, whether  they pro-
mote urine, perspiration, expectoration,  or  the  menstrual flow,
and particularly if they have  the effect of emptying the  ali-
mentary canal  upwards  or  downwards, because the  principal
tendency of the efforts of practitioners has, at all times, been the
expulsion of a morbid material principle,  and of a quantity of
acrid matter, which they imagined to be the cause of disease.
   These, however, were vague  dreams,  gratuitous suppositions,
hypotheses destitute of foundation,  skilfully invented for  the
convenience of therapeutic medicine, which flattered  itself that
it would have an easier task to perform in contending against
morbid material principles.   (Si modo essent /)
   But the essence of diseases,  and their cure, will not bend to
our fancies and convenience; diseases will not, out of deference
to our stupidity,  cease  to  be  dynamic aberrations,  which  our
spiritual existence undergoes in its mode  of feeling and acting—
that is to say, immaterial changes in the state of health.
   The causes of disease cannot possibly be material, since the
least  foreign substance* introduced into the blood vessels, how-
ever mild it may appear to us, is suddenly  repulsed by the vital
power, as a poison ;  or, where  this does not take  place, death
itself ensues.   Even when the smallest  foreign particle chances
to insinuate itself into any  of the sensitive parts, the principle
of life which is spread throughout our interior, does not  rest
until it has procured the expulsion of this  body, by pain, fever,
suppuration,  or gangrene.  And,  in a skin disease  of twenty
years' standing, could this vital principle, whose activity is
indefatigable, suffer  patiently,  during  twenty years,  an  exan-
themic material principle (the poison of tetter, scrofula, or gout)
to exist in the fluids ?  What nosologist has ever  seen one of
those morbid principles, of which  he speaks with so much con-
fidence, and upon which he presumes to found a plan of medical
treatment ?  Who has ever been able to exhibit to the view, the
principle of gout, or  the virus of scrofula ?
   * Life was suddenly endangered  by  injecting  a little pure  water into
a vein.  See Mullen, in Birch,  History of the Royal Society, Vol. IV.
   Atmospheric air introduced into the  veins  has occasioned death.  See
J. H.  Voigt, Magazin fur den  neusten Zustand der Naturkunde,  Vol.
I. iii.  p. 25.                                  .                .
   Even the mildest liquids, introduced  into the veins, have placed lite in
danger.  See Autenrieth, Physiologie,  II. § 7S4. 
20
  Even when  a material  substance, applied  to  the skin, or
introduced  into a wound, has propagated disease  by infection,
who can prove  (what has so often been affirmed in our  Patho-
geny) that the slightest particle of this material substance pene-
trates into our  liquids or becomes absorbed ?*   It is in vain to
wash the genitals with care  and promptitude, such precaution
will not protect the system from the venereal virus.   The least
breath of air emanating from a patient labouring  under small-
pox is sufficient to produce  that formidable  disease in a healthy
child.
  How  much  of this material principle—what quantity in
weight—would be requisite  for the  liquids  to  imbibe, in order
to produce,  in  the  first instance, syphilis, which will continue
during the whole term of life ; and, in the second,  the small-
pox,  which often rapidly destroys  life amidst a  suppuration!
almost general ?

  * A young girl, of Glasgow, eight years of age, having been bitten by a
mad dog, the surgeon immediately  cut out the part, which, nevertheless,
did not save the child from an attack of hydrophobia thirty-six days after,
of which she died at  the end of two days.  Med. Comment, of Edinb.
Dec. 2, vol. ii. 1793.
  f In order to account for the great quantity of putrid foecal matter, and
fetid ichorous discharge,  which  arises in disease, and to represent these
substances  as the cause  that calls forth, and keeps up, the morbid state,
although, at the moment of infection, nothing material had been seen to
enter into the body, they had recourse to another hypothesis, which ad-
mitted, that certain very  minute contagious principles act upon the  body
as a ferment, bringing the humours  into  the same degree of corruption
with themselves, and converting them in this manner into a similar fer-
ment, which keeps up the disease.  But, by what purifying decoctions
 do  they expect to  free  the body from a ferment  that is constantly
renewed, and expel it so completely from the mass of fluids, that  not a
single particle may remain, which, according to the admitted hypothesis,
 if any did  remain, would infallibly corrupt the humours afresh, and re-
produce, as at first, new morbific  principles 1   Thus, according to the
manner of  the old school, it would be impossible  ever to cure  these
 diseases.  Here we see to what absurd conclusions the most artful hypo-
 thesis will lead, if founded in  error.  The most firmly rooted syphilis
 when the psoric affection, with which it is often complicated, has been
 removed, may be cured by one or two small doses of a solution of mer-
 cury, diluted to  the decillionth potence, whereby the general syphilitic
 corruption of the humours is  (dynamically) corrected in a permanent
 and constitutional manner. 
21
  Is it possible  in  these  two cases,  or in  others which are
analogous, to admit that a morbific principle, in a  material
form, could  have  introduced itself into the  blood?  It has
often happened  that  a letter, written  in  the chamber of a
patient, has communicated the same contagious disease to the
person who  read it.   Can we entertain the opinion, that any
thing material entered  into  the humours  in this instance?
But why all  these proofs ?  How often have we seen that an
offensive or  vexatious word  has brought  on a bilious  fever
which  endangered  life;—a  superstitious prophecy  of death,
actually occasion death at the very epoch predicted ; afflicting
news,  or  an agreeable surprise, suddenly suspend  the vital
powers ?   Where is there, in any of these  cases, the morbific
material principle, which entered, in substance, into the  body,
which produced disease and kept it up, and, without the expul-
sion or destruction  of which, by medicines,  all radical cure
would be impossible ?
  The supporters of an hypothesis so  gross, as that of morbific
principles, ought to blush,  that they have  so thoughtlessly
overlooked and disregarded the spiritual nature of our life, and
the spiritual dynamic  power of morbific agents, and have thus
reduced themselves to  mere  scouring physicians, who, instead
of curing,  destroy life  by their attempts to drive out of the body
peccant matters which never  had an existence there.
   In diseases, the  excretions which  are often so disgusting,
could they be the actual material which produced the malady,
and which kept it up ?*  Are they not rather the product  of the
disease  itself;  that is  to say,  of  the pure dynamic  derangement
which the constitution has undergone.
   With such erroneous ideas  of the material origin and essence
of disease, it is by no  means surprising, that, in all  ages, the
obscure as well as the distinguished practitioner, together with
the  inventors of the  most sublime theories,  should  have for
their principal aim, the separation and expulsion of a supposed
morbid  material,  and  that  the indication   most frequently
established,  was that of dividing this material, rendering it
movable,  and expelling it by the saliva, the bronchial mucus,
  * If this were true, it would be sufficient  to blow the nose, and wipe
it clean, to effect a speedy  and infallible cure of all species of coryza,
even the most inveterate. 
22
the urine, and  perspiration ; purifying the blood by the action
of herbal decoctions, (which are supposed to effect this process
at the command of the physician,) thus unloading it of acrid
matter and impurities which it never contained; drawing off the
imaginary principle of the disease mechanically,  by means of
setons, cauteries,  permanent blisters ;  and  above all, by  the
expulsion of the peccant matter, as they termed it, through the
intestinal canal, by  laxatives  and  purgatives, and to  add to
their importance they were dignified with the  high sounding
titles of aperients and dissolvents.  All of these  were so  many
attempts to remove a hostile material principle which never did
and never could have existed.
  Now, if we admit that—which is an established fact; namely,
that with the exception of those diseases brought on  by the
introduction  of indigestible or  hurtful  substances,  into  the
alimentary canal and other organs,—those produced by foreign
bodies penetrating the skin, &c,—there does not exist a single
disease that can have a material principle for its cause—on the
contrary, all of  them are  solely and always the special result
of an  actual and dynamic derangement in the state of health;
how contradictory, then, must that method of treatment, which
depends  upon the expulsion* of this imaginary principle, appear

  * There is, apparently, some  necessity for the expulsion of worms in
the so called worm-disease.  But even this appearance is false.  A few
lumbrici are found in some children, and ascarides in a greater number.
But the greater part of either one or the other is owing to a general affec-
tion (psoric) connected with an unhealthy mode of living.  If the'regi-
men be ameliorated, and the psoric affection homceopathically cured,
which  is  easier to be performed at this age than at any other period of
life, there will remain but few or no worms at all, or at least, the children
are no longer incommoded by  them; whereas, on the other hand, they
promptly  appear  again, in great  numbers, after  the  administration of
mere purgatives, even combined with worm seed.  " But the tape-worm,
this monster, created for the torment of human nature, must certainly be
driven out with all manner of force." Yes, at times, he will be driven
out, but beneath what sufferings and danger !   I should not like to have
upon my  conscience the death  of all those who have fallen sacrifices to
the violence of purgatives directed against this worm, or the long years
of debility, which they, who escaped death,  must have dragged out.
And how often does it not occur, that after having repeated these purga-
tives, so destructive to life and health, during several years successively,
the animal is either not  driven out at all, or is re-produced !  How 
23
to every reasonable man, since no good can  result  from it, in
treating the principal diseases of mankind, viz. the chronic, but,
on the contrary, much mischief?
   No one will deny that the degenerate and impure substances
which appear in diseases, are any thing else than the mere pro-
duct of disease itself,  which the system can get rid of, in a forci-
ble manner, frequently too forcible, without the aid of evacuating
medicines, and that they are re-produced so long as the disease
continues.   These substances often  appear to  the true physi-
cian, in the shape of morbid symptoms, and aid him in dis-
covering the nature  and image of the disease, which he after-
wards  avails himself  of,  in performing a cure by means of
homoeopathic agents.
 then, if there be no necessity at all for seeking to expel and destroy
 the  taenia, by means so violent and  cruel,  and which place the  life
 of the patient in such imminent danger !  The different species of taenia
 are only found in patients labouring under a psoric affection, and when
 the  latter is cured, they instantly disappear.  Until the cure is accom-
 plished, they live, without being a source of great  inconvenience to the
 patient, not  exactly in the  intestines, but  amid the  residue of  the
 aliments, where they exist without doing injury, and find what they
 require  for their nourishment.  As long as this state of things continues,
• they do not touch the coats of the intestines, or do any harm to the body
 that contains them ;  but the first moment that an acute disease attacks
 the  patient, the contents of the intestines become  insupportable to  the
 animal, which turns itself about and  irritates the sensitive part of the
 entrails, exciting a species of spasmodic cholic,  which adds greatly to
 the sufferings of the  invalid.  In the same manner, the child is restless,
 turns and  pushes, while the mother  is sick, but  floats quietly in  the
 amniotic fluid, without inconvenience to her, when she is well.  It may
 be observed here, that the symptoms which manifest themselves at this
 epoch,  with  persons who  have the  solitary worm within them, are of
 such a nature, that often the smallest dose of tincture of male-fern-root
 (filex mas.)  speedily effects their eradication in a homoeopathic manner,
 because it puts an end to that part of the malady occasioned by the dis-
 turbed state of the animal: the tape-worm, finding itself once more at
 ease, continues to exist upon the intestinal substances, without incom-
 moding the patient in any  very painful degree, until the anti-psoric cure
 is so far advanced that the worm no  longer finds the contents of the
 intestinal canal fit for  his support, and he voluntarily  quits it for ever,
 without any purgatives being  employed. 
24
   But the most skilful among the present followers of the former
school of medicine do not wish it to be known, that the chief
aim of their mode of treatment,  is  the  expulsion  of  material
morbid principles.   To the numerous evacuants which they
employ, they  apply the name of  derivatives, and in so doing,
pretend that they do  nothing more than imitate the nature of
the  disordered system,  which, in  her  efforts  to  re-establish
health, distinguishes fever  by sweats and urine;  pleurisy by
bleedings at the nose, perspiration, and mucous  expectoration ;
other diseases by vomiting, diarrhoea, and hemorrhoidal flux ;
articular  pains, by ulcers on the legs ;  angina by salivation,
&c, or by metastasis and abscesses which  she forms in parts
distant from the seat of the disease.
   Accordingly, they think  they  can do nothing  better than
imitate nature, and thus they adopt an indirect mode of treat-
ment in the majority of diseases.  They follow the traces of
the diseased vital power left to itself, and proceed in an  indirect
manner,* by applying stronger heterogeneous irritation  to parts
distant from the seat of the disease, exciting and  keeping up
evacuations by the organs dissimilar to  the tissues affected, in
order to turn the course of the evil, in  some degree,  towards
this new position.
   This derivative system was, and still continues, one of  the chief
curative indications  of the prevailing school.
   By this imitation of self-helping nature, vis medicatrix nature,
as it is termed by others, they try to excite  by  forcible means
(in the parts  least affected, and  which can best  support  the
malady which the  medicines provoke) fresh symptoms which
extinguish  the primitive disease,! by assuming the appearance
of a crisis, and thus allow the powers of self-helping nature to
operate a gradual resolution.!

  * Instead of extinguishing the evil promptly, and without delay, as in
the homoeopathic mode  of treatment, by the application of  dynamic
medicinal powers directed against the  diseased parts of the system.
   ! As if any thing immaterial could be drawn off!  Yet  they suppose
a morbid material, be it as subtile as it may.
   X Diseases that are moderately acute, are the only ones that terminate
quietly, when they have reached the natural term of their career, whether
weak alloeopathic remedies be applied to them or otherwise : the vital
powers, when reviving, gradually substitute the normal state in the place 
2.5
  They recommend diaphoretics, diuretics, venesection, setons,
and cauteries, and above all, excite irritation of the alimentary
canal, so as to produce evacuations from above and more espe-
cially  from below, all of which were irritatives,  and to these
they applied the names of aperients and dissolvents.*
  In aid of this derivative system they likewise employ another
which bears great affinity to it, and which consists of counter-
irritants :  lamb's-wool  applied to  the  bare skin, foot-baths,
nauseants, the cure by infliction of the torments of hunger upon
the intestinal canal, (abstinence,) applications that excite pains,
inflammation, and suppuration in  the neighbouring or  distant
parts, such  as   armoracia,  sinapisms, blisters,  mezereum, the
seton, Autenrieth's ointment, (ointment of emetic  tartar,) the
moxa, actual cautery, the acupuncture, «fcc.   And in this, they
again follow the example of pure  nature, which, left to  herself,
endeavours to  get rid of the dynamic disease by pains which
she causes to arise in the distant regions of the body, by metas-
tasis,  and abscesses : by cutaneous eruptions  or suppurating
ulcers ;  but all  her efforts, in this respect, are useless, where
the disease is of a chronic nature.
   Thus  it is  evident that it was no well-digested plan, but
merely imitation, that led the  old school to these helpless, per-
nicious, and indirect methods of cure,  both  derivative  and
counter-irritant; and induced them to adopt plans of treatment
so  inefficacious, debilitating,  and injurious,  in ameliorating
and dissipating disease, which arouse another and worse evil to
occupy  the place of the former.   Can we  call that  healing
which rather deserves to be called destroying ?  for the name of
cure could never be applied to such a result.  They were con-


of  the in-normal.  But  in every acute disease, and  in those  that are
chronic, which constitute the great majority of diseases to which man
is subject, this resource no longer comes to the aid of simple nature, and
the  old school of medicine.  The efforts of the vital powers, and the
imitative attempts of allceopathy, are not potent enough to effect a resolu-
tion ; and all that results from  them is a truce of short duration, during
 which the enemy gathers his forces to re-appear, sooner or later, in a more
 formidable shape than ever.
   * This very denomination likewise  announces a supposition on their
 part of the presence of some morbific substance which was to be dissolved
and expelled.
        4 
2(5
tented to follow nature in  the efforts  which she makes, and
which are only crowned with partial success* in acute diseases
of a mild form.

  * The  ordinary school  of medicine regarded the means which the
organism employs to relieve itself, in those patients who make no use of
medicines, as perfect models of imitation; but they were greatly mis-
taken.  The  miserable and very imperfect  attempts which the vital
powers make to assist themselves in acute diseases, is a spectacle that
ought to excite man to use all the resources of his learning and wisdom,
to put an end, by a real cure, to this torment which nature herself in-
flicts.  If nature  cannot cure, homoeopathically, a disease already exist-
ing in the  system,  by the production of a fresh malady similar to it,
(sec. 43—46.)  a thing not often in her power to effect, (sec. 50.) and if
the  system,  deprived of all external succour,  stands alone  to triumph
over a malady that has just broken out, (her  resistance is totally power-
less in chronic miasms) we see nothing but painful and often dangerous
efforts of the constitution to save  itself at all hazards, efforts of which
death is most frequently the result.
  Just as little as we can witness what is passing in the interior  of
our bodies  in  a healthy condition, and as certainly as these processes
remain concealed from us, as they lie open to  the sight of Omniscience—
just  so little can we perceive  the internal  operations of the ainmal
frame, when life is disturbed by disease.  The action that takes place in
diseases manifests itself only  by external symptoms, through the me-
dium of which alone, our system expresses the troubles that take place
in the interior;  so  that,  in each given case,  we  never once discover
which are  those  among  the morbid symptoms, that owe their origin to
the primitive action of the disease, and those which are  occasioned by
the re-action of the vital powers endeavouring to rescue themselves from
danger.   Both are confounded before our eyes, and only present to us,
(reflected on the exterior) an image of the entire malady within; since
the fruitless efforts by which nature, abandoned to herself, makes, to put
an end to the  malady, are also sufferings which the whole frame under-
goes.  This is the  reason why those  evacuations which nature usually
excites at the termination of diseases, that have  been rapid in their
attacks, and  which  are called crises,  often do more harm than good.
What the vital powers do in these pretended crises, and in what manner
they are accomplished, are mysteries to us, as well as every other inter-
nal action which  takes place in the organic economy of life.  One thing,
however, is certain, which is,  that in the course of these  efforts, there
are particular parts that suffer more or less, and which are sacrificed to
the safety of others.  These operations of the vital power proceeding to
combat an acute disease, solely in  conformity to the laws of the organic
constitution, and  not according to the inspirations of a  reflecting mind,
are, for the most part, merely a section of alloeopathy.  In order to free 
   They did  nothing more than imitate the preserving vital
 powers  abandoned to  their own resources, which  depending
 solely upon the organic laws of the body, only act in virtue of
 these laws, without reasoning or reflecting upon  their actions.
 They copied  nature, who could not, like an intelligent surgeon,
 bring together the  gaping lips of a wound,  and reunite them
 by the first  intention;  who,  in an oblique fracture, can do
 nothing,  however great may be the quantity of osseous  matter
 which exudes, to adjust and attach the two ends of the bone ;
 who, not  knowing how to tie up a wounded artery, suffers a
 man full of strength  and health to bleed to death; who, igno-
 rant of the art of reducing a dislocation, renders its reduction
 in  a very  short  time  impossible, by  reason of the swelling
 which she excites in all the neighbouring parts; who, in order
 to  free herself from  a  foreign  body  that  had penetrated  the
 transparent cornea,  destroys  the whole eye by suppuration ;
 who, in a strangulated  hernia, cannot break the  obstacle  but
 by gangrene  and death;  who, finally, in dynamic diseases, by
 changing their form, often renders the state of the patient worse
 than it was before.  Besides, this unintelligent vital power  admits
 into the body, without hesitation, the greatest scourge of our earthly
 existence, the source  of countless diseases which have afflicted
 the human species for  centuries  past—that is to say, chronic

 the organs primitively affected, by means of a  crisis, it increases the
 activity of the  organs of secretion in order to lead off the evil from the
 former to the latter: thence result vomiting,  diarrhoea, plentiful  flow of
 urine, sweats, abscesses, &c, and the nervous powers, attacked dynami-
 cally, seek in some degree  to unload themselves by mateiial products.
  The  animal  economy, abandoned to its  own resources, cannot save
 itself from acute diseases, but by  the destruction  and sacrifice of  one
part of the system itself; and even where death does not ensue, the har-
mony of life and health  is restored only  in a slow and imperfect
manner.
  The great debility of those organs which have been  exposed  to  the
attacks of the malady, as well as that of the entire body, after this spon-
taneous cure, meagreness, &c, are sufficient testimonies of  the  truth of
what we have asserted.
  In short, the  whole proceedings  by which the  system  delivers itself
from the diseases with which it is attacked, only exhibit to the observer
a tissue of sufferings, and show him nothing which he can,  or ought to,
imitate, if he truly exercises the art of healing. 
2S
miasms,  such as psora, syphilis, and sycosis.  And, far from
being able to relieve  the  system of any one of these miasms,
she does  not even possess the power of ameliorating them; but,
on the contrary, suffers them quietly to continue their ravages
until  death comes to  close the eyes of  the  patient,  after long
years of  grief and suffering.
  In a matter so important as that of healing,—in a profession
that requires so much intelligence, judgment, and  skill, how
could the old school (which was accounted rational) blindly
take the  vital power for its best instructor and guide;  how could
it venture, without reflection, to imitate  the indirect and revo-
lutionary acts which the vital power performs in disease—and.
finally, follow it as the best and most perfect of models, whilst
reason, that magnificent gift  of the Deity,  has been  granted to
us,  in order that  we  may go infinitely beyond  it, in the aid
which we are to bring to  our fellow mortals?
  When the prevailing school of  medicine,  in the accustomed
application  of their  repellent and derivative systems of cure,
(which have no other basis than an inconsiderate imitation of
the natural, automatic powers  of life,)  attack the healthy or-
gans, and inflict on them pains more acute, than those of the
disease itself against  which they are directed—or,  what hap-
pens  more  frequently, force evacuations, which dissipate in
pure loss the strength and the juices;—their aim is to  direct
towards the parts which they irritate, that morbid action which
life developed in the organs  that were primitively affected, and
thus violently uproot the  natural disease,  by exciting a stronger
heterogeneous disease in the more healthy parts—that is to  say,
by making use of indirect and circuitous means, which exhaust
the powers and  occasion great suffering.*


  * Daily experience shows us how unsuccessful  these manoeuvres are
in chronic diseases.  In very few cases is a cure effected. But can they
call that a victory, where instead of attacking the enemy in front, hand
to hand, and terminating the difference by his death, they content them-
selves with setting every part of the country behind him in flames, cut-
ting off retreat and destroying all  around.  By such means they  may
certainly succeed  in breaking the courage of their adversary, but  their
object is still unattained ; the foe is not destroyed, he is still there • and
when his magazines are replenished, he again rears his head, more fero-
cious than he was before.—The  enemy, I say, is not destroyed, but the 
29
  It is true, that by these heterogeneous attacks, the disease.
when it is an acute one,  (and consequently cannot be of long
duration,) transports  itself  to parts  distant and dissimilar  to
those which it  at first occupied;  but it is by no means  cured.
There is  nothing in this revolutionary mode of treatment  that
has a direct or  immediate connection with the  organs  primi-
tively  diseased, or  which deserves  to  be called  a cure.  By
abstaining from such grievous attacks upon the life of the other
parts of  the  system,  the acute disease would often dissipate
itself even more rapidly, leaving less suffering  behind,  and
without occasioning  so  great a consumption of  the powers.
Besides, neither the mode of proceeding which is  followed by
simple nature, nor its alloeopathic imitation, will bear a compa-
rison with the direct,  dynamic, homoeopathic treatment, which,
without wasting the vital powers, extinguishes the disease  in a
prompt and rapid manner.
  But in  the great majority of diseases,  and  in  chronic affec-
tions, these stormy, debilitating, and  indirect treatments  of the
old school scarcely ever  produce any good.  All that they can
effect is,  a suspension, for a few days, of some  incommodious
symptom or another, which returns  immediately, when nature
has  become accustomed  to the distant irritation;  the disease
then returns more grievous than before,  because the repellent
pains* and the ill-advised evacuations have lessened the energy
of the vital powers.
poor innocent country is so ruined that it will scarce recover itself in a long
lapse of time.  This is precisely what happens to allceopathy, in chronic
diseases, when, without curing the malady, it undermines and destroys
the system by indirect attacks against  innocent organs, which are dis-
tant from the seat of  the latter.  These are the results of such injurious
attempts.
  *  What  favourable consequences  have ever resulted from issues,  so
frequently  established, diffusing their fetid odours around ? Even though
they appear during the first fortnight, by their irritating power, slightly
to diminish a chronic disease as  long as they continue to keep up con-
siderable pain, they afterwards, when the body is accustomed to the pain,
have no other effect than that of  weakening the patient, and thus open-
ing  a still wider field to the chronic  affection.  Or,  are there yet physi-
cians in the nineteenth century who could regard these issues as outlets
for the  escape of the peccant matters?   It appears that some such prac-
titioners do exist! 
30
     While the greater number of alloeopathic physicians, in their
  general imitation of the salutary effects of nature, abandoned to
  her own resources, thus introduced  into the practice of medi-
  cine those derivative systems  which  they termed  useful,  and
  which every one varied according  to the fancied indications
  suggested by his own ideas; others,  aiming at  a  still higher
  object, promoted with all their skill  the tendency which  the
  vital powers exhibit in diseases, to relieve themselves by  evacua-
  tions, and opposing metastasis, and endeavoured in  some degree to
  aid  them,  by promoting these derivations  and evacuations,
  imagining that by this  mode  of treatment they might justly
  arrogate to themselves the names ministri nature.  Because it
  often happens, in chronic diseases, that the evacuations which
  nature excites, bring relief in cases where there are  acute pains,
  paralysis, spasms, &c, the old  school  imagined  that the true
  method of curing disease was by favouring, keeping up, or
i  even  increasing  the  evacuations.  But  they never discovered
  that all those pretended crises, those evacuations  and deriva-
  tions produced by nature abandoned to her own exertions, only
  procure palliative relief for a short period, and,  that far from
  contributing towards a real cure, they, on the contrary, aggra-
  vate the internal primitive evil, by consuming the strength and
[  the juices.  No one has ever seen those efforts of simple nature
  effect the durable recovery of a patient, nor have those evacua-
  tions, excited by the system,* ever cured a chronic disease.  On
  the contrary, in all cases of this nature, after  a short relief,  (the
  duration of which gradually diminishes.) the primitive affec-
  tion is manifestly aggravated, and the attacks return  stronger
  and more frequent than before, although  the evacuations do not
L cease.
     In the same manner, nature, abandoned to her own resources
  in internal chronic diseases which threaten life, can only bring
  relief by exciting the appearance of external local symptoms,
  in order to turn away danger from the organs indispensable to
  existence, and  transport it, by metastasis, to those which  are
  not so: such attempts of an  unintelligent,  inconsiderate  but
  energetic vital  force, have a tendency towards any thing but a
  real cure;  they are nothing more than palliatives, short stag-
* Not more effectual are those artificially produced. 
31
nations imposed  on the internal disease, at the  sacrifice of a
great, portion of the liquids and strength, without the primitive
affection losing any thing of its intensity.   Without the aid of
homoeopathic treatment, all they can do, at farthest, is to delay
for a time that  death which is inevitable.
   The Alloeopathy of the old school greatly exaggerated the
efforts of pure  nature.   Falsely judging them to  be truly salu-
tary, they sought to promote and  develop  them still farther.
hoping, by these  means, to destroy the entire evil and effect a
radical cure.  When,  in a  chronic  disease, the vital power
appeared to improve this or that grievous symptom of  the  in-
ternal state, for example, by means of a humid exanthema, then
the self-styled minister of nature applied a blister, or some other
exutory, upon the suppurating surface,  to draw  (duce  natura)
a still greater quantity of humour from the skin, and thus assist
nature in the  cure, by removing  from the body the morbific
principle.  But sometimes, when the action of the remedy was
too violent, the humid tetter already old, and the body too sus-
ceptible of irritation, the external affection increased consider-
ably, without any advantage  accruing to the primitive evil, and
the  pains,  rendered still more acute, deprived  the  patient of
sleep,  diminished his strength, and often brought on a bad de-
scription of feverish erysipelas.  Sometimes, when the remedy
acted with more  gentleness upon the local disease, (which was
perhaps yet recent,) it exercised a kind of external homoeopathy
upon the local  symptoms which nature  had produced upon the
skin, in order to relieve the internal malady;  thus renewing the
latter, to which still greater danger was attached, and exposing
the vital powers  by the suppression of the local  symptoms, to
the excitement of others of a graver nature, in other and more
noble parts.  The patient then was attacked with a  dangerous
ophthalmy, deafness, spasms  in the stomach, epileptic convul-
sions, suffocation, fits of apoplexy, mental derangement, &c* The
same pretext of assisting the vital powers in their curative efforts,
led the minister  of nature, when the malady caused an afflux
of blood into the  veins of the rectum, or the anus, (blind piles.)

  * These are the  natural results of repelling such local symptoms-
results, which the allceopathic physician often  regards as diseases that are
perfectly new and of a different character. 
32
to have recourse to the repeated application of leeches in great
numbers, in order  to open an issue to the blood in that quarter.
The emission of blood procured an amendment, sometimes  so
slight,  as  to  be scarce deserving of notice; but, at the same
time, it weakened the body and gave rise to a yet stronger con-
gestion towards  the  extremity of the intestinal canal, without
effecting the slightest diminution, of the primitive malady.
  In  almost every   case,  where  the  diseased vital  powers
endeavoured to evacuate a little blood by vomiting, expectora-
tion, &c., in order to diminish the severity  of a dangerous
internal affection,  they  immediately hastened  (duce natura)  to
give all the assistance in their power to these pretended salu-
tary efforts of nature, and blood in abundance  was extracted
from the vein; which never failed to prove injurious  in the
end, and to weaken the body to a manifest extent.
  And still more frequently, with the intent of assisting nature,
in chronic nausea, they excited powerful evacuations  of the
stomach and administered plentiful emetics;  but  never  with
any good result,  and  seldom without frightful and even  dan-
gerous consequences.  To appease the  internal malady  in a
slight  degree,  the vital powers  sometimes excite indolent
enlargements of the external glands.   The minister of nature
thinks he is serving the divinity to whom he is  devoted, by
bringing these tumours to a suppuration, by the use of frictions
and warm applications,  in order to plunge the  knife into the
abscess when it is arrived at maturity, and cause the peccant
matter to flow externally.(?)  But  experience  has  a thousand
times proved the interminable evils that always result from this
mode of treatment.
  Because the alloeopathist has often seen severe sufferings,  in
chronic diseases, somewhat relieved by spontaneous nocturnal
perspiration, or by certain natural  dejections  of liquid matter,
he  thinks himself  bound to follow  these  indications of nature;
he  likewise thinks it his duty to second the labours which he
sees carried on in his own presence, by prescribing a complete
sudorific treatment, or the continued use, during several years
of  what he calls gentle laxatives, in order to relieve the patient
of the  disease that torments him with more speed and certainty.
But this  mode of treatment never produces  any  thing but a 
33
contrary result, that is to say, it always aggravates  the primi-
tive disease.
   Thus the allceopathist, yielding to the force of this opinion,
which he has embraced without scrutiny, notwithstanding the
absence of all foundation,  persists in seconding* the efforts of
the diseased vital powers, and augmenting the derivations and
evacuations,  which never  lead to the attainment of his object,
but rather to the ruin of the patient.  He never discovers that
local affections, evacuations, and apparent derivations,  (which
are effects excited  and kept up by the vital powers abandoned
to their own  resources, in order to afford some slight relief to
the  primitive disease,) are  of themselves a constituent part of
the ensemble of the signs of the malady,  against the totality of
which there  could be no real, salutary, and curative remedy,
save a medicine whose effects were  analogous with the pheno-
mena occasioned  by its action upon man  when in a state of
health, or, in other terms, a homoeopathic remedy.
   As every thing that simple nature performs to relieve herself
in acute, and more particularly,  in chronic  diseases, is highly
imperfect,  and  is actually  disease  itself,  it  may readily  be
conceived that the efforts of art  labouring to assist this imper-
fection do still greater injury, and in acute maladies, at  least,

  * The old school, however, often permitted themselves to follow an
inverse method of treatment, that is, when the efforts of nature, tending
to relieve the internal malady by evacuations, or by exciting local external
symptoms, manifestly injured the patient, they employ against them all
the powers of repellents; and thus combat chronic  pains, insomnolency,
and diarrhoea of long standing, with strong and hazardous doses of opium;
vomitings, by  effervescing  mixtures;  foetid perspiration of the feet, by
cold foot-baths and astringent fomentations; eruptions of the skin, with
preparations of lead and zinc; uterine hemorrhages, by injections of vine-
gar;  colliquative perspirations,  by alum curd; nocturnal seminal emis-
sions, by the use of camphor in large quantities;  sudden glow of heat
over the face and body, by nitric, sulphuric, and vegetable acids; bleed-
ings at the nostrils, with dossils of lint dipped in alcohol or astringent
liquids; ulcers  on the lower extremities, by oxides of lead, zinc, &c. But
thousands of facts attest the melancholy consequences that result from
this mode of treatment.  The allceopathist, both in speaking and writing,
boasts of being a rational physician,  of searching out the  latent cause
of disease, and  always of effecting radical cures; but it is evident that a
treatment founded on isolated symptoms must always be detrimental to
the patient.
       5 
34
they cannot remedy that which is defective in  the attempts of
nature, because the physician, incapable of following the con-
cealed paths by which the vital power accomplishes its crises,
could only operate upon the exterior by means of energetic reme-
dies, whose effects not only do less good than those of  nature,
abandoned to herself, but on the contrary, are more perturbating
and  destructive  to the  powers.   Even this imperfect relief,
which nature effects  by means  of derivations and crises, he
cannot attain by following the same path; do what he will,
even the miserable succour which the vital powers can procure,
when abandoned to their own resources,  is infinitely beyond
the skill of the alloeopathist.
  By a  scarification  of the pituitary membrane, it has been
tried to produce bleeding at the  nose,  in  imitation of  natural
nasal hemorrhage, to relieve, for example, an attack  of  chronic
cephalalgy.  In such a case, a quantity of blood might be drawn
from the nostrils sufficient to weaken the patient; but the relief
would be far less than that afforded at another time, when the
vital instinctive powers, of their own accord, caused only a few
drops of blood to flow.
  One of those  so called critical perspirations  or  diarrhoeas,
which the incessant activity of the vital powers excites, after
any sudden indisposition arising from vexation, fright,  cold, or
injury from improper lifting, is far more efficacious in allaying,
momentarily at least,  the acute suffering of the patient, than
all  the nauseous  sudorifics  or  purgatives, contained in the
shop of an apothecary. This is proved beyond a doubt by daily
experience.
  However, the vital power, which is devoid of intelligence
and judgment, and which cannot act of itself, but according to
the organic disposition of our bodies, was  not given to  us, that
we should follow it as our best guide in  the cure of diseases,
much less that  we  should imitate, in a  servile manner, its
imperfect attempts to restore health by joining  to it a treatment
more opposed than its own to the object it has in view, for no
other purpose than that of sparing ourselves the  study and
reflection necessary to the discovery of the true art of healing
and finally to place a bad  copy of the inefficacious  aid which
nature affords when abandoned to her own resources, in the
room of the most noble of all human arts!  What reflecting man 
35
would copy the efforts of nature in curing disease ? These very
efforts are the disease itself, and the morbidly affected vital en-
ergy is evidently the  source of the malady.  It follows then, that
to imitate or to suppress these efforts must in one case augment
them, or in the other, render them dangerous by suppression,
and the allceopathist does both;  these are  their  pernicious
doings,  who boast of  following the rational  plan of healing.
   No ;  that innate power of man which directs life in the most
perfect manner whilst in health,  whose presence is alike felt in
every part of the system,  in  the sensitive as in the irritable
fibre, and which is the indefatigable spring of all the normal
functions of the body, was not created for the purpose of aiding
itself in disease.   It  does  not exercise  a system of cure that is
worthy of imitation, that is to say, a work of refection and judg-
ment, and which, when the automatic and unintelligent vital powers
have been disordered  by disease, and in-normal action produced,
knows how to modify  them by appropriate remedies, so that after
the disappearance of  the new  disease produced by the medicine,
(which  soon takes place,) they return to their normal stale, and
to their  appointed function of maintaining health  in  the system,
withoid  having undergone,  during this conversion,  any painful or
debilitating attacks. Homeopathic medicine teaches us  the mode by
which we are to arrive at this result.
  A great number of patients treated according to the methods
of the old school, which have just passed in review before us,
escaped from diseases, not in chronic disorders, (non-venereal,)
but in those maladies that were acute, and which are less dan-
gerous. This, however, was effected by such painfully circuitous
means, and frequently in a manner so imperfect, that no one
could  say the cure  was performed by the influence of an art
that acted mildly in its mode of treatment.   In cases where
there was no imminent danger, acute diseases were sometimes
repressed by means of venesection, or  sometimes by the sup-
pression  of one  of the principal symptoms,  by  a palliative
enantiopathic remedy (contraria contrariis), or sometimes sus-
pended by irritants  and revulsants applied to  parts  removed
from the diseased organ, until the course of their natural revo- 
36
lution was ended—that is to say, they opposed them by indirect
means,  exhausting the strength and the juices;  so that the
greater  part of what was  necessary to be done,  in order to
remove  the disease and repair the losses which the patient had
undergone, remained to be performed  by the self-preserving
vital power.   The latter, then, had not only to  subdue the
acute natural disease, but also to overcome the results of an ill
directed mode of  treatment.  In casual cases, this vital power
was to exercise its own energies to bring back the functions to
their normal rhythm, which could only be effected imperfectly
and slowly, and with great difficulty.
  In acute diseases it is doubtful whether this treatment, of the
existing school, really facilitates or abridges the cure by the aid
of nature, since neither of them act but in an indirect manner,
and  their derivative and  counter  irritating modes of cure,
wound  the system more  profoundly, and lead to a still greater
dissipation of the vital powers.
  The old school practise yet another method of cure, which
they call " exciting and strengthening,"* (by excitanlia, nervina,
tonka, confortanlia, roborantia.) It is surprising that they should
boast of this mode of treatment.
  Has it ever succeeded  in  removing the weakness which a
chronic disease so often engenders, augments, and keeps up, by
prescribing (as it has so frequently done) etheric  Rhine wine,
or spirituous  Tokay ?   As this treatment was not able to cure
the chronic disease, (the source of the debility,) the strength of
the patient decreased in proportion as they made him take more
wine, because the vital powers,  in  their re-action,  oppose
relaxation to artificial excitements.
  Did cinchona, or any of the mistaken, ambiguous and perni-
cious substances, which collectively bear  the  name of Amara,
ever restore strength in  these cases which  are of such frequent
occurrence ?   These vegetable products, which they pretended
were tonic and  strengthening in all  circumstances, together

  * This method is, properly speaking, enantiopathic, and I will again
touch uponit in the course of the Organon, (sec. 59.) 
37
with the preparations of iron, did they not add fresh sufferings
to the old ones, by reason of their peculiar morbific action,
without being able to  remove the debility which depended on
an unknown malady of long standing ?
  The so  called unguenta  nervina, or the other spirituous and
balsamic topical applications, did they ever diminish in a dura-
ble manner, or even momentarily, incipient paralysis of an arm
or leg, (which arises,  as  is frequently the case, from a chronic
disease,) without curing the cause  itself?  Or have electric and
galvanic shocks ever produced, in such cases, any other results
than those of gradually increasing the paralysis of the muscular
irritability and the nervous* susceptibility, and finally rendering
the paralysis complete ?
  Have  not  the highly  boasted  excilatilia and aphrodisiaca,
ambergris, smelts, tincture  of cantharides, truffles, cardamoms,
cinnamon, and vanilla, constantly ended with changing the
gradually  declining power of the virile faculties  (which  is
always caused by some unobserved chronic miasm) into total
impotence  1
  How could they boast of an  acquisition of strength, and ex-
citement, which lasts  only a few hours, when the results  that
follow bring on  an opposite state (which is lasting) according
to the laws of all palliatives ?
  The little good that the excitantia and roborantia did to the
patient treated for acute maladies, according to the old method,
was a thousand times  overbalanced by the ill effects which the
use of them produced in chronic diseases.
  The allosopathists not unfrequently commence the treatment
of a chronic disease, by blindly administering their  so called


  * An apothecary (in Jever) had a voltaic column, the gradual strokes
of which gave temporary relief to persons afflicted with deafness.  Soon
these shocks caused no more effect, and it was necessary, in order to
produce the same  results, to render them yet stronger, until, in their
turn, they likewise became inefficacious: after this, the most powerful
shocks  only had the faculty, at the commencement,  of restoring  the
hearing of the  patient for a few  hours, but finished  by  leaving him
a prey to total deafness. 
38
alterative remedies  (alterantia), among which  the mercurials
(calomel, blue pill,  corrosive sublimate, mercurial ointments)
occupy a conspicuous place.   These  sovereign  remedies  of
theirs, even in cases not venereal,  are often given in large and
long  continued  doses, until their deleterious tendency becomes
manifest in the ruined health of the patient.   Great alterations
are certainly produced by the destructive operation of mercury
upon improper  parts, but they are such as finally exhaust the
constitution of the patient.
   Cinchona, in  all  genuine marsh intermittents,  is a homoeo-
pathic remedy,  and when not prevented by pre-existing  psora,
a specific.   But by prescribing it in large and long continued
doses in every epidemic intermittent,  the ignorance of the old
school is abundantly shown ; for, the disease almost every year
assuming a different character,  requires for its  removal a dif-
ferent homoeopathic remedy, which in a single dose, or, at most,
a very few minute doses, effects a radical cure in the course  of
a few days.   Now, because such  epidemic fevers have their
periodical attacks (type of the disease), while  it is these which
an allceopathist  chiefly regards in  an intermittent, and  while
the bark is considered as the only remedy for its removal, if he
can but suppress the type of the disease by means of enormous
doses of that  medicine, or its more costly extract, quinine, he
supposes, forsooth,  that the patient is cured.  But he is really
left in a worse condition after such suppression of the periodical
returns of his fever, than before.  We behold him moving
slowly along, his countenance sallow, his breathing asthmatic,
the hypochondres distended, the abdominal viscera diseased,
frequently the abdomen itself and limbs in a bloated  condi-
tion,—without healthful appetite or refreshing sleep, weak and
dispirited, he  is discharged from the hospital in this state  of
complicated suffering—as  cured!  not  unfrequently  years  of
elaborate  homoeopathic treatment are required, we will not say
to restore his health, but to rescue this  radically vitiated, this
artificially cachectic patient from an untimely death.
  It is cause of gratification to  the old school,  when by the
antipathic virtues of valerian, they can  convert  the  stupor  of
nervous  fever into  a degree of  exhilaration for  a few hours.
But this transient excitement being once over, it can be  repro-
duced only  by  a repetition of still larger  doses  of the  same 
3D
medicine, and even the largest soon  lose their effect.   Their
primary  operation  being that of  a stimulating palliative, the
entire vital energies, during the secondary effects of the medi-
cine,  become paralysed, and thus, by means of the rational
treatment of the old school, the speedy dissolution of the patient
is rendered inevitable.   As certainly mortal as is  the issue  of
the case, the followers of the  old system do not perceive it, and
the patient's death  is ascribed by them to the malignity of his
disease.
  Digitalis purpurea  is a  still more formidable  palliative  in
chronic  diseases, and its virtues are highly extolled by the old
school for allaying the rapid  and irritated pulse (purely symp-
tomatic)  in these  maladies.   Though the use of this potent
enantiopathic medicine, may, at first, in many instances, abate
the frequency of the pulse for some  hours, yet it will shortly
afterwards become more frequent  than  ever.  To  retard  its
velocity again, the medicine is repeated in a  larger dose; it is
again availing, yet for a shorter period; until by frequent repe-
tition, even in augmented doses, it loses its effects altogether.
The pulse not now being restrained by the secondary or con-
secutive effects of  digitalis, becomes  more rampant than before
its use, and too rapid to be reckoned. Among the train of con-
sequences  may also be observed, loss of sleep and appetite and
diminution of strength, until, finally, if these  disasters do not
terminate in incurable mania, death becomes the patient's only
refuge!
   Such, then, was the treatment  which the  alloeopathic physi-
cian practised on his patients.   The latter, therefore,  were
obliged  to yield to necessity, since they  could derive nothing
better from the other physicians who had drawn their informa-
tion from the same fallacious source.
   The  fundamental  cause  of  chronic  diseases, (non vene-
 real) and  the mode by which they could be  cured,  remained

   * Notwithstanding  all this, Hufeland,  the representative of the  old
 school, with great self-complacency,  in his  pamphlet on homoeopathia,
 p. 22, praises the digitalis for  the purpose of repressing  morbid  fre-
 quency of the pulse:  his words  are,  " None will deny" (but experience
 does) " that a too vehement circulation can be removed by digitalis'' (?)
 permanently'? does  he mean removed?  what! by the use  of an heroic
 enantiopathic remedy 1  Poor Hufeland ! 
40
 unknown  to these practitioners, who  prided  themselves on
 their own remedies, which they said were directed against the
 cause.  How was  it possible  for them to cure the immense
 number of chronic diseases by their indirect methods, their im-
 perfect imitations of the efforts  of  an automatic vital power.
 which were never destined to become models of a treatment to
 be followed in medicine ?
   They regarded that which they believed to be the character
 of the malady, as the cause of the disease itself, and accordingly,
 directed their pretended radical cures against spasm, inflamma-
 tion  (plethora),  fever, general  or   partial debility,  pituita,
 putridity,  obstructions,  &c. which they  imagined they  could
 remove with the aid of  their  antispasmodics, antiphlogistics,
 tonics, irritants, antiseptics, dissolvents, resolutives, derivatives,
 evacuants, and other repellent medicines, known to themselves
 only in a superficial manner.
  But indications of so vague a nature were insufficient to dis-
 cover those medicines which are of real utility,  particularly so
 in the materia medica of the old school, which, as I have else-
 where shown,* depended  mostly upon mere conjecture, and on
 false  conclusions ah usu  in morbis,  mixed up  with fraud and
 falsehood.
  They continued to act  with the same degree of coldness in
 matters that were still more hypothetical; against the deficiency
 or superabundance of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon,  and hydrogen
 in the fluids; against the exaltation or diminution of irritability,
 sensibility, nutrition, arterial congestion, venous  congestion,
 capillary congestion, astheny, &c,  without  being acquainted
 with a single remedy by which they could reach  so visionary
 an  object.   It was  ostentation  that  induced them to attempt
 these cures which could not be advantageous to the patients.
  Every appearance of treating disease effectively and to the
 purpose, disappears in their manner  of associating  various
 medicinal substances to constitute what they call a prescription,
 and time has not only rendered this association sacred, but has
 converted it into a law.  They place  at  the head of this recipe,
 under the name of basis, a medicine  that is not at all known in

  * In the treatise " On the Sources of the Old Materia Medica," in the
third part of my Materia Medica. 
41
regard  to the extent of its medicinal effects, but which they
think ought to  subdue the principal  character of the  disease
admitted by the physician ; they add to this, one  or  two sub-
stances equally  unknown  in respect of their operation  on the
system, and which they destine either  to fulfil  some accessory
indication, or to increase the action of the basis ; they then add
a pretended corrective,  of whose special medicinal virtues they
have no better knowledge ;  they mix the whole together, some-
times adding either a syrup, or a distilled water, which likewise
possess distinct  medicinal properties,  and imagine that  each
ingredient of the mixture  will perform, in  the diseased body,
the part that has been  assigned to it by the imagination, with-
out  allowing itself to be disturbed  or led astray by the other
articles that accompany it:—a result  which no one could
reasonably  expect.  One of these ingredients  destroys, either
partly or wholly, the operation of the  other, or gives to it, as
well as  to the remainder, a different  mode of action altogether
which had never been thought of, so that the effects calculated
on could not possibly take place.   This inexplicable enigma of
mixtures often produces that which neither was nor could have
been expected, a new modification of the  disease, which is not
observed amidst the tumult of  symptoms, but which becomes
permanent  by the  prolonged use of the prescription.   Conse-
quently, a factitious malady, joining itself to the  original one,
aggravates the primitive disease  ; or if the patient  does not use
the  same prescription  for a long time, if one  or several be
crowded upon him successively, composed of  different ingre-
dients, greater debility will at least ensue, because the substances
which are prescribed in such a case have generally little or no
direct reference  to  the principal malady, and only make a use-
less  attack  upon those  points against which its assaults have
been the least directed.
  Though the action of every medicine on the  human body
should already have been discovered, still the  physician  who
writes the prescription does not often know the effect of  one in
an hundred.  Mixing several drugs together, some of  which
are already compounds, and their separate  effects imperfectly
known,  in  order  that  such a  confused mixture should be
swallowed by the patient in large and frequent doses, and then
       6 
42
to expect from  it a certain  curative  effect, is an  absurdity
evident to every unprejudiced* and reflecting individual.  The

  * Even  among the  ordinary schools  of medicine,  there have been
persons who  discovered  the absurdity of mixing medicines, although
they themselves followed this  eternal routine which their own reason
condemned.  Marcus Herz expresses himself (Hufeland's Journal,  II.
p. 33,) on this subject in the following terms:—"When we wish to
remove inflammation, we do not employ either nitre, sal  ammoniac, or
vegetable acids, singly, but we usually mix up several antiphlogistics, or
use them altogether at the same time.  If we have to contend against
putridity, we  are not content with administering, in large quantities, one
of the known antiseptics, cinchona,  mineral acids, arnica, serpentaria,
&c, to attain the object we have in view; but we prefer mixing  up
several of them together, having a greater reliance upon their combined
action; or, not knowing which of  them would act most suitably in the
existing case, we accumulate a variety of incompatible substances, and
abandon to chance the  care of  producing, by  means of one or  the other
of them, the relief we  designed to afford. Thus, it is rare that, by the
aid of a single medicine, we excite  perspiration,  purify the blood, (?)
dissolve obstructions, provoke expectoration, or even effect  purgation.
To arrive  at  these results, our prescriptions are  always  complicated  ;
they  are scarcely ever simple and pure: consequently they cannot be
regarded as experiments relative to the effects of the various substances
that enter into their composition.  In fact, we learnedly establish, among
the medicines in our recipes, a hierarchy, and we call that one the basis
to which we (properly  speaking) confide the  effect, giving to  othets the
names of adjuvants, corrigents, &c.  But it is evident that mere arbi-
trary will has, for the most part, been the  occasion of such a classifica-
tion.  The adjuvants contribute, as well as the basis, to the entire effect,
although, in the absence of a scale of measurement, we cannot determine
to what degree they may have participated.  The influence of the cor-
rigents over  the  virtues of the other medicines, likewise,  cannot be
wholly indifferent; they must either increase or diminish them, or give
them another direction.  The salutary change  which  we effect by the
aid of such a prescription, ought  then always to  be considered as the
result of its whole contents taken collectively, and we can never come
to any certain conclusion upon the individual efficacy of any one of the
ingredients of which it is composed.  In short, we are but too slightly
acquainted with that  which is essential to be known of all medicines,
and our knowledge with regard to the affinities which they enter into,
when mixed up together, is too limited for us to be able to say, with any
degree of certainty, what will be  the mode or degree of action of a sub-
stance even the most insignificant in appearance, when introduced into
the human body, combined with other sicbstances." 
43
result is consequently the reverse of that which they expect to
take place in so precise a manner;  changes certainly take
place, but not one among them is either good  or conformable
to the object that is to be attained.
  I should like very much to see that which is called a cure,
by a man working  thus blindly in the bodies of his fellow-
creatures.
  The restoration of health is to be expected only by cherish-
ing the due  activity of the vital principle yet  remaining with
the patient, by means of remedies suitable for that purpose, and
not by debilitating the system, secundum artem, almost to  the
extinction of life.  This is a method, however,  not unfrequent
with the old school on  commencing  the treatment of chronic
diseases : they operate by means of medicines which harass the
patient, expend  the animal fluids, exhaust  the strength, and
shorten life !  can they be said to save while they thus destroy ?
and can they be said to  exercise any other than a hurtful art ?
They act, lege artis, as contrary to their professed aim as possi-
ble, and practice «;\Wa, that is to say, the very reverse of what
they  ought  to  do.  Can  they deserve commendation ?   In
modern times, indeed, this school have gone  to great excesses
in frustrating the end of all true medical treatment, as every
impartial  observer  must acknowledge,  and as physicians of
their own, (when their  consciences are awakened, like that of
Krueger Hansen,) will confess before the world.
  Observation, reflection, and experience, have unfolded to me,
that, in opposition to the old alloeopathic method, the best and
true method of cure is founded on the principle, similia similibus
curenlur.   To cure  in  a  mild, prompt,  safe,  and  durable
manner, it is necessary to choose in each case a medicine that
will excite  an affection  similar (l^ot w«0o?) to that against
which it is employed.
  Until the present time no person has ever inculcated this 
44
homoeopathic mode of treatment, and yet more, no one has
ever put it into practice.  But if this is  the only true method,
(of which every one may be convinced with myself,)  we ought
to discover sensible traces of it  in every epoch  of the art,
although its  true  character may have been unknown during
thousands  of years.    And  such  has, in reality,  been the
case.*
  In all ages, the diseases which have  been cured by medicines,
in a prompt,  perfect, durable, and manifest manner, and which
were not indebted for their cure to any accidental circumstance,
or to the accomplishment of the natural revolution of the acute
disease, or to the circumstance of the  bodily powers having
gradually regained a preponderance by means of an alloeopathic
or antipathic  treatment, (for being cured directly differs greatly
from being cured  indirectly;) these diseases, I say, have yielded,
although without the knowledge of the physician, to a homoeo-
pathic remedy, that is to say, to a remedy in itself capable of
exciting  a morbid state   similar  to  that whose  removal  it
effected.
  Even in an effectual cure that had been performed by the
aid of mixed medicines, (of which there are but few examples,)
it has been discovered, that the medicine whose action domi-
nated over that of the others  was  always of a homoeopathic
nature.   But this  fact  presents itself to us still more evidently
in certain cases, where  physicians performed a speedy cure by
the aid of a  single remedy, in violation  of  the custom that
admitted none other but mixed medicines in the form of a pre-
scription.   Here we see, to our astonishment, that the cure was
always the effect of a  single medicinal  substance, capable of
itself to produce  an affection similar to that under which the
patient laboured, although the physician did not know what he
was doing, and only acted thus in forgetfulness of the precepts


  * For Truth, like the  infinitely wise  and gracious  God, is eternal.
Men may disregard it for a time, until the period arrives when its rays,
according to the determination of Heaven, shall irresistibly break through
the mists of prejudice, and, like Aurora  and  the opening day,  shed a
beneficent  light, clear  and inextinguishable, over  the generations  of
men. 
45
of his own school.   He gave a medicine, where,  according to
the established laws of therapeutics, he  should have adminis-
tered exactly a  contrary one, and by these means alone his
patients were promptly cured.
   I  shall  here  relate some examples  of these homoeopathic
cures, which  find  a clear  and  precise  interpretation in the
homoeopathic doctrine now discovered and acknowledged, but
which we are by no means to regard as arguments in favour of
the latter, because it stands firm without the aid of any such
support.*
   The author  of the  treatise on epidemic  diseases (imfa/Aw)
(attributed to  Hippocrates), at the  commencement of lib. 5.
mentions a case of cholera  morbus that resisted every remedy,
and which he cured by means of veratrum album  alone, which,
however,  excites cholera of  itself, as witnessed  by Forestus,
Ledelius;  Reimann, and many others.!

  * If, in the cases which will be cited  here, the  doses of medicine
exceeded those  which the  safe homoeopathic doctrine prescribes, they
were, of course, very naturally attended with the same degree of danger
which usually results from all homoeopathic agents when administered
in large doses.  However, it often happens from various causes which
cannot at all times be discovered, that even very large doses of homoeo-
pathic medicines  effect a cure,  without  causing any notable injury;
either from the vegetable substance having lost a part of its strength, or
because abundant evacuations ensued  which  destroyed the greater part
of the effects of the remedy; or, finally, because the stomach had received
at the same time other substances, which, acting as an antidote, lessened
the strength of the dose.
  f P. Forestus, xviii. obs. 44.—Ledelius, Misc. not. cur. dec. iii. ann.
i. 065. 65.—Reimann, Brest. Samml. 1724, p. 535.  In this, and in all the
examples that follow, I have purposely abstained from reporting either
my own observations or those  of my adherents upon  the special effects
of each individual medicine, but merely those of the physicians of times
past.  My object for acting in this manner,  is to show that the art of
curing homoeopathically might have been discovered before my time. 
46
  The English sweating sickness, which first exhibited itself in
the year 1485,  and which,  more murderous than the plague
itself, carried off in the commencement, (as testified by Willis,)
ninety-nine patients out of a hundred, could not  be subdued
until  such time as they had  learned to administer  sudorifics to
patients.  Since that time, as Sennertus* observes, few persons
died of it.
  A case of dysentery, which lasted several years,  threatening
the patient with inevitable  death, and against which every
other medicine  had been tried without success,  was, to  the
great surprise of Fischer,! (but not to mine,) cured in a speedy
and permanent  manner by  a purgative  administered by an
empiric.
  Murray, (whom I selected from numerous other authorities,)
together with daily  experience,  inform us, that  among  the
symptoms  produced by the  use of tobacco, those of vertigo,
nausea, and anxiety, are the principal.  Whereas Diemerbroeck,!
when attacked with those very symptoms of vertigo, nausea,
and anxiety, in the  course of his close attendance on the vic-
tims of epidemic diseases in Holland, removed them by the  use
of the pipe.
  The  hurtful  effects which some  writers  (among others
Georgi§) ascribe  to  the use of the  agaricus  muscarius,  by  the
inhabitants of Kamtschatka, and which  consist  of  tremors,
convulsions, and  epilepsy,  became  a salutary  remedy  in  the
hands of C. G. Whistlingll, who used this mushroom with suc-
cess in cases of convulsions accompanied with tremor ; likewise
in those of J. C. Bernhardt,** who  used it  with success in a
species of epilepsy.

  * De Febribus, iv. cap. 15.
  f In Hufeland's Journal fur  Practische Arzneikunde, vol. x. iv. p.
127.
  X Tract, de Peste, Amsterdam, 1665, p. 273.
  § Beschreibung aller Nationen des Russischen Reichs, (A Descrip-
tion of all the Nations of the Russian Empire,) pp.  78, 267, 281,  321,
329, 352.
  || Diss, de Virt. Agaric. Muse.  Jena, 1718, p. 13.
  ** Chym. Vers, und Erfahrungen, Leipzig, 1754, obs. 5. p. 324.  Gru-
ner, De Viribus Agar. Muse.  Jena, 1778, p. 13. 
47
  The  remark  made by Murray,* that  oil of aniseed  allays
pains of the  stomach  and  flatulent  colic  caused by purga*
tives, ought not to  surprise us,  knowing that J. P. Albrechtf
has  observed pains  in  the  stomach produced by this liquid,
and  P.  Forestus! violent colic likewise caused by its adminis-
tration.
  If F. Hoffman praises the  efficacy  of millefoil in various
cases of hemorrhage; if G.  E. Stahl, Buchwald and  Lbseke
have found this plant useful in excessive  hemorrhoidal flux; if
Q,uarin and the editors of the Breslauer Sammlungen speak of
the cure it has effected of hemoptysis;  and finally,  if Thoma-
sius  (according  to Haller) has used it  successfully in uterine
hemorrhage;  these  cures are evidently  owing  to  the  power
possessed  by  the plant,  of  exciting of itself hemorrhage and
hematuria, as observed by G. Hoffman,? and more especially of
producing epistaxis, as confirmed by Boeder. II
  Scovolo,** among many  others,  cured a  case where the
urinary discharge was purulent, by arbutus uva ursi; which
never could have been performed if this plant had not the pro-
perty of exciting heat in the urinary passage with discharge of a
mucous urine, as seen by Sauvages.f!
  And  though  the  frequent experience  of Stoerck, Marges,
Planchon,  Du Monceau, F. C. Junker,  Schinz, Ehrmann, and
others  had not  already established the  fact, that  colchicum
autumnale  cures  a species of dropsy, still this faculty was to
have been expected from it, by reason of the particular  power
which it possesses of diminishing  the urinary secretion, and of
exciting at  the same time a continual desire  to pass water.  It like-
wise causes the  flow of a small quantity of urine  of a fiery red
colour, as witnessed by StoerckU and de Berge.§§  The cure of


  * Appar. Medic, 2d edit. 1, p. 429, 430.
  f Misc. nat. cur. dec. ii. ann. 8, obs. 169.
  X Observat. et Curationes, lib. 21.
  § De Medicam.  Officin.   Leyden, 1738.
  || Cynosura Mat. Med. Cont. p. 552.
  **  In Girardi, de uva ursi. Padua, 1764.
  !!  Nosolog., iii.  p. 200.
  jj  Libellus de Colchico.  Vienna, 1763, p» 12.
  §§ Journal de Medecine, xxii. 
48
 an asthma  attended  with hypochondriasis, effected by Gdritz*
 by means of colchicum, and that of an asthma  complicated
 with an apparent hydrothorax, performed by Stoerck! with the
 same substance, were  evidently  grounded upon the homoeo-
 pathic property which it possesses, of exciting by itself asthma
 and dyspnea, as witnessed by de Berge.t
   Muralto§ has seen what we may witness every day, viz. that
jalap, besides creating gripes of the stomach, also causes great
 uneasiness and agitation.  Every physician acquainted with the
 facts upon  which homoeopathy  rests,  will find  it  perfectly
 natural, that the power so justly ascribed to this medicine by
 G. W. Wedel,ll of allaying the gripes, restlessness, and scream-
 ing which are so frequent in young children, and of restoring
 them to tranquil repose,  arises from homoeopathic influence.
~  It is also  known and  has  been  attested by Murray, Hillary,
 and Spielmann, that senna occasions a kind of colic,  and pro-
 duces, according to C. Hoffmann**  and F. Hoffmann,!! flatulency
 and agitation of the blood,XX ordinary causes of insomnolency. It
 was this  innate homoeopathic virtue of senna, which enabled
 Detharding§§ to cure with its aid patients afflicted with violent
 colic and insomnolency.
   Stoerck, who had so intimate a  knowledge of medicines, was
 on the point of discovering that the bad effects of the dictamnus,
 which, as he  observed  himself, sometimes provokes a mucous
 discharge from the vagina, IIII arose from the very same  properties
 in this root  by virtue of which he cured a leucorrhea of long
standing.***


  * A. E. Biichner,  Miscell. Phys. Med. Mathern.  Ann. 1728, Jul. pp.
 1212, 1213.  Erfurt,  1732.
  ! Ibid. cas. 11, 13.  Cont. cas. 4, 9.
  X Ibid. loc. cit.
  § Misc. Nat. Cur. dec. ii. a. 7, obs. 112.
  || Opiolog.  lib. 1, p. 1, cap. ii. p. 38.
  ** De Medicin. Officin. lib. 1,  cap. 36.
  f! Diss, de Manna, § 16.
  XX Murray, loc. cit. ii. p. 507. 2d. edit.
  §§  Ephem. nat.  cur. cent. 10, obs. 76.
  ||||  Lib. de Flamm. Jovis.  Vienna, 1769, cap. 2.
  *** Ibid. 
49
   Stoerck,  in  like  manner, should  not have been astonished
when curing a general  chronic eruption (humid,  phagedenic
and psoric) with the clematis* having himself ascertained! that
this plant has the power of producing a psoric eruption over the
whole body.
   If, according to Murray,! the  euphrasia cures lippitudo and a
certain form of ophthalmy, how could it  otherwise have  pro-
duced this  effect, but by the  faculty it possesses of exciting a
kind of inflammation in  the eyes,  as has been remarked by
Lobelius?§
   According to J. H. Lange,ll the nutmeg has been found effica-
cious in hysterical fainting fits.   The sole natural cause of this
phenomenon is homoeopathic, and can be attributed to no other
circumstance, but that the nutmeg, when given in strong doses
to a  man in health, produces,  according to J. Schmid**  and
Cullen,!! suspension of the senses and general insensibility.
   The old practice of applying rose-water externally in ophthal-
mic diseases, looks like a tacit avowal, that there exists in the
leaves of the rose some  curative power for diseases of the eye.
This is founded upon the homoeopathic  virtue which the rose
possesses, of exciting by itself a species of ophthalmia in per-
sons who are in health, an effect which Echtius,!! Ledelius,§§
and Rau,llll actually saw it produce.
   If,  according  to  Pet. Rossi,*** Van  Mons,»J J. Monti,!!!
Sybel,§§§ and others, the Rhus toxicodendron and radicans have
the faculty of producing pimples  which gradually cover the entire

  * Lib. de Flamm. Jovis.  Vienna,  1769, cap. 13.
  f Ibid. p. 33.
  % Appar. Medic.  11, p. 221. 2d edit.
  § Stirp. Adversar. p. 219.
  || Domest. 'Brunsvic. p. 136.
  ** Misc. nat. cur. dec. ii. ann. 2, obs. 20.
  f! Arzneimittellehre, ii. p. 233.
  XX In Adami, Vita Medic, p. 72.
  §§  Misc. nat. curios, dec. ii. ann. 2, obs. 140.
  |||| Rau,  iiber den Werth des Homoeop. Heilverfahrens, p. 73.
  ***  Observ. de Nonnullis Plantis, quae pro venenatis habentur.  Pisis,
1767.
  !!!  In Dufresnoy Ueber den wurzelnden Sumach, p. 206.
  XXX Acta Instit. Bonon. sc. et art. iii. p.  165.
  §§§ In Med. Annalen, 1811, July. 
50
body, it may be easily perceived how it could effect an homoeo-
pathic cure of  various  kinds of herpes, which it really  has
done,  according to information furnished by Dufresnoy  and
Van Mons.  What could have bestowed upon this plant (as in
a case cited by Alderson*)  the power  of curing a  paralysis of
the lower extremities, attended with weakness of the intellectual
organs, if it did not of itself evidently possess the faculty of
depressing the  muscular powers by acting on the imagination of
the patient to such a degree as to make him believe that he is
at the point of death, as in a case witnessed by Zadig.f
   The dulcamara, according to Carrere,! has cured the most
violent diseases emanating from colds, which could result from
no other cause  but that this herb, in cold and damp weather,
frequently produces similar affections  to  those lohich arise from
colds,  as Carrere himself has observed § and likewise Starcke.ll
—Fritze** saw  the  dulcamara produce convulsions,  and De
Haenf! witnessed the very same effects, attended with delirium;
on the other  hand, convulsions attended with delirium, have
yielded to small  doses of the dulcamara, administered by the
latter  physician.!!—It were vain to seek amid the vast empire
of hypotheses the cause that renders the dulcamara so effica-
cious in a species of herpes, as witnessed by Carrere, §§ Fouquet,llll
and Poupart.*** Nature, which requires the aid of homoeopathy
to perform a safe cure, sufficiently explains the cause, in the
faculty possessed by the  dulcamara of producing a certain

   * In Samml. aus. Abh. f. pr. Aerzte, xviii. 1.
   f In Hufeland's Journal  der Prakt. Arzneik. v. p. 3.
   X Carrere (and Starcke,) Abhandl. ueber die Eigenschaften des Nacht-
 schattens oder Bittersuesses.  Jena, 1786, pp. 20-23.  (Treatise on the
 Properties of the Woody Nightshade or Bitter-sweet.)
   § Ibid.
   || In Carrere, Ibid. p. 140, 249.
   ** Annalen des Klinischen Instituls, iii. p. 45.
   !! Ratio Medendi.  Tom. iv. p. 228.
   XX Ibid, where he says: " Dulco-amarae stipites majori dosi convul-
 siones et deliria excitant, moderata vero spasmos, convulsionesque sol-
 vunt." How near was De Haen to the discovery of the law of healing
 the most conformable to nature !
   §§  Ratio Medendi.  Tom.  iv. p. 92.
   |||| In Razouz,  Tables Nosologiques, p. 275.
   ***  Traite des Dartres. Paris, 1782, pp. 184, 192. 
51
 species of herpes.  Carrere  saw  the use of this plant excite
 herpetic eruptions which covered  the entire body during a fort-
 night;* and on  another occasion where it produced  the same
 on the hands,t and a third time where it fixed itself on the labia
pudendi.%
  Rucker§  saw  the solanum nigrum produce  szvelling  of  the
 entire body.   This is  the  reason  that Gatackerll and Cirillo**
 succeeded in curing with its  aid (homoeopathically) a  species of
 dropsy.
  Boerhaave,!! Sydenham,!! and Radcliffe§§ cured another spe-
 cies of dropsy with the aid of the sambucus niger,  because,  as
 Hallerll || informs us, this plant causes an ozdematous swelling when
 applied externally.
  De Haen,*** Sarcone,!!! and PringleJ!! have  rendered due
 homage to truth and experience, by declaring freely,  that they
 cured pleurisy with the scilla maritima, a root, which  on  ac-
 count of  its  excessive acrid properties, ought to be forbidden in
 a disease of  this nature, where,  according to  the  received
 method, only sedative,  relaxing, and refrigerant remedies  are
 admissible.  The disease  in question  subsided,  nevertheless,
 under the influence of the squill,  on  homoeopathic principles;
 for T. C. Wagner§§§ formerly saw the action of this plant alone
 produce pleurisy and inflammation of the lungs.
  A great many practitioners, D. Crueger, Ray, Kellner, Kaaw
 Boerhaave, and others, IIIIII have observed that  the datura stramo-

  * Traite des Dartres.  Paris,  1782, pp. 96.
  ! Ibid. p. 149.                 X Ibid. p. 164.
  § Commerc. Liter. Noric. 1731, p. 372.
  || Versuche & Bemerk. der Edinb. Gesellschaft, Altenburg, 1762, vii.
 pp. 95, 98.
  ** Consult. Medichi. Tom.  iii. Naples, 1738, 4to.
  !! Historia Plantarum, P. I. p. 207.        XX Opera, p. 496.
  §§ In Haller, Arzneimittellehre, p. 349.
  |||| In Vicat, Plantes veneneuses, p. 125.
  *** Ratio Medendi, P. I. p. 13.
  !!! History of Diseases in Naples, vol. i. §. 175.
  XXX Obs. on the Diseases of the Army, ed.  7, §. 143.
  §§§ Observationes Clinics.  Lubec, 1737.
  Illlll C. Crueger, in Misc. Nat. Cur., dec. iii. ann. 2, obs. 88.—Boerhaave,
 Impetum Faciens — Leiden, 1745, p. 282.—Kellner, in the Bresl. Samml.
 172. 
52
nium excites a singular kind of delirium and convulsions.  It is
precisely this faculty that enabled physicians to cure with  its
aid, demonomania* (fantastic  madness, attended with spasms
of the limbs) and  other  convulsions, as performed by Sidren!
and  Wedenberg.!   If in the  hands of  Sidren§ it cured two
cases of chorea, one of which  had been occasioned by fright,
and the other by mercurial vapour, it was because it possessed
the faculty of exciting involuntary movements  of the limbs, as
observed  by Kaaw  Boerhaave,  and  Lobstein.  Numerous
observations, and  among others those made by Schenk, have
shown us that it can destroy consciousness and recollection in
a very short time; therefore, it ought not to  surprise us, if,
according to the testimony of Sauvages and Schinz, it possesses
the faculty of  curing a weak  memory.  By  the  same rule,
Schmalzll succeeded in curing with the aid of this plant a case
of melancholy, alternating with madness, because, according to
aCosta,** it has the power of exciting such alternate mental
aberrations when administered to a person in health.
  Percival, Stahl,  Q,uarin,f! and many other physicians, have
observed  that cinchona  occasions  oppression  of the stomach.
Others, (Morton, Friborg, Bauer, and Quarin,)  have seen this
substance produce vomiting  and diarrhoea,  (D.  Crueger and
Morton)  syncope; some an excessive  debility, many (Thomson,
Richard, Stahl, and C. E. Fisher) a kind of jaundice; (Q,uarin
and Fischer) bitterness of the mouth; and yet others, tension of
the belly.  And it  is  precisely when these complicated evils
occur in  intermittent fevers, that Torti  and Cleghorn recom-
mend the use of cinchona alone.  The advantageous effects of
this bark in cases of exhaustion, indigestion, and loss of appetite
resulting from acute fevers, (particularly when  the  latter have
been treated by venesection,  evacuants  and  debilitants)  are
founded  upon the faculty which it possesses of depressing exces-


  * Veckoskrift for Laekare, iv. p. 40, et seq.
  ! Diss, de Stramonii Usu in Malis Convulsivis. Upsal, 1793
  X Ibid.
  § Diss. Morborum  Casus, spec. i. Upsal, 1785.
  || Chir. und Medic. Vorfalle, Leipzig, 1784, p. 178.
  **  In P. Schenck, lib. 1, obs. 139.
  !!  Quoted in my Mat. Med. iii. 
53
sively the vital powers, producing mental and  bodily^exhaustion,
indigestion, and loss of appetite,  as observed by Cleghorn, Fri-
borg, Crueger,  Romberg, Stahl, Thomson, and others.*
  How would  it have been possible to stop hemorrhages  with
ipecacuanha,  as effected by Baglivi, Barbeyrac, Gianella,  Dal-
berg, Bergius, and others, if this medicine did not of itself possess
the faculty of exciting hemorrhage homoeopathically?—as  Mur-
ray, Scott, and Geoffroyf have witnessed.   How could it  be so
efficacious in asthma, and particularly in spasmodic asthma, as
it is described to have been,  by  Akenside,! Meyer,§  Ban^.li
Stoll,** Fouquet,!! and  Ranoe',1! if it did not of itself produce
(without exciting any evacuation) asthma, and spasmodic asthma
in particular, as Murray,§§ Geoffroy,|||| and Scott*** have seen it
call forth ?  Can any clearer  hints be required, that medicines
ought to be  applied  to  the  cure of diseases  according to the
morbid effects  which they produce ?
   It would be impossible to conceive  why  the Faba  Ignatia
could be so efficacious  in  a  kind of convulsions, as we are
assured it is, by Hermann,!!! Valentin,!!!  and an anonymous
writer,§§§ if it. did not possess  the power of exciting  similar
convulsions,  as witnessed by  Bergius,IIIIII Camelli,***Jf and Du-
rius.!!!!
   Persons who have received a blow or a contusion,  feel  pains
in the side, a desire to vomit,  spasmodic, lancinating and burn-
ing pain in the hypochondres, all of which  are accompanied
with anxiety, tremors, and  involuntary starts, similar to  those

  * Mat. Med. iii.                f Ibid. pp. 184, 185.
  X  Medic. Transact. I. No. 7. p. 39.
  §  Diss, de Ipecac,  refracta dosi  usu, p. 34.
   ||  Praxis Medica, p. 346.        ** Prselectiones, p. 221.
  !! Journal de  Medecine, torn. 62, p. 137.
  J! In Act. Reg. Soc. Med. Hafn., ii. p.  163, iii. p. 361.
  §§ Medic. Pract. Bibl., p. 237.
   ||||  Traite de la Matiere Medicale, ii. p.  157.
  *** In Med. Comment, of Edinb.  iv. p.  74.
  !!! Cynosura Mat. Med. ii. p. 231.
   XXX Hist. Simplic. Reform, p. 194, § 4.                •
   §§§ In Act. Berol. dec. ii. vol. x. p. 12.
   |||||| Materia Medica, p. 150.
   •••* Philos. Trans, vol.  xxi. No. 250.
   t!!f Miscell. nat.  cur. dec. iii. ann. 9, 10. 
54
 produced by an  electric  shock, formication in the parts that
 have received the injury, &c.  As the arnica montana produces
 similar symptoms, according to the observations of Meza, Vicat,
 Crichton, Collins, Aaskow,  Stoll, and J.  C. Lange,* it may be
 easily conceived on what account this plant cures the effects of
 a blow, fall, or contusion,  and consequently the  malady itself
 occasioned by such a  contusion, as experienced by  a host of
 physicians and even whole  nations for centuries past.
   Among the  effects which  belladona excites when  adminis-
 tered to a person  in sound health, are symptoms, which,  taken
 collectively, present an image greatly resembling that species
 of hydrophobia and rabies  canina which  Mayerne,!  Munch,!
 Buchholz,§ and Neimike,l|  cured in a perfect manner with this
 plant  homoeopathically.**   The patient in  vain  endeavours to
 sleep,  the  respiration is embarrassed, he is  consumed by a burning
 thirst, attended with anxiety;  the moment any liquids are presented
 to him,  he rejects them with violence; his  countenance  becomes
 red, his eyes fixed  and sparkling, (as observed by F. C. Grimm;)
 he  experiences  a  feeling  of  suffocation  zohile  drinking,  with
 excessive  thirst, (according to E. Camerarius and Sauter;)  for
 the most part he is incapable  of swallowing any thing, (as affirmed
 by May, Lottinger,  Sicelius,  Buchave,  D'Hermont,  Manetti,


  * See my Mat. Medica, i.
  ! Praxeos in Morbis internis Syntagma alterum. AugusUe Vindelico-
 rum, 1697, p. 136.
  ! Beobachtungen  bey angewendeter Belladonne bei den Menschen.
 Stendal, 1789.
  § Heilsame Wirkungen der  Belladonne in ausgebrochener Wuth.
 Erfurt, 1785.
  || In J. H. Miinch's Beobachtungen, Th. i. p. 74.
  ** If belladonna has frequently failed in cases of decided rabies,  we
ought to remember  that it cannot cure in such instances,  but by its
 faculty of producing effects similar to those of the malady itself, and
 that, consequently, it ought not to be administered but in the  smallest
possible doses, as will be shown in the Organon, (§ 275-283.)   In gene-
ral, it has been administered  in very large doses, so that the patients
necessarily died, not of the disease, but of the remedy. However, there
may exist more than one  degree or species of hydrophobia  and rabies
and consequently (according to the diversity of the symptoms) the most
suitable homoeopathic remedy may be sometimes hyosciamus, and some-
times stramonium. 
55
Vicat, and Cullen ;) he  is alternately  actuated by terror and a
desire to bite the persons who are near him, (as seen by Sauter
Dumoulin, Buchave, and Mardorf;) he spits every where around
him, (according to Sauter;) he endeavours to make  his escape,
(as we  are informed by Dumoulin, E. Gmelin, and Buc'hoz;)
and a continual agility of the body  is predominant, (as wit-
nessed by Boucher, E. Gmelin, and Sauter.)*  Belladonna has
also effected the cure of different kinds of madness and melan-
choly, as in the cases reported by Evers, Schmucker, Schmalz,
the two Munches,  and many others,  because it  possesses the
faculty of producing different kinds of insanity like those mental
diseases caused by belladonna, which are noted by Rau, Grimm,
Hasencst, Mardorf, Hoyer, Dillenius, and others.!  Henning,!
after vainly endeavouring, during three months, to cure a case
of amaurosis with coloured spots before the eyes, by a variety
of  medicines,  was  at length struck  with the idea that this
malady might perhaps  be occasioned by gout, although the
patient  had never  experienced the slightest  attack; and  upon
this supposition he was by chance induced to prescribe  bella-
donna^ which effected a speedy  cure  free  from any incon-
venience.  He would  undoubtedly have made choice of this
remedy at the commencement, had he known that  it was not
possible to perform a  cure but by the aid of a remedy which
produces  symptoms similar to those of the disease  itself; and
that, according to the infallible law of nature, belladonna  could
not fail  to cure this case  homoeopathically,  since, by the testi-
mony of Sauterll and  Buchholz,** it excites, of itself, a species
of amaurosis with coloured spots before  the eyes.
   The  hyosciamus  has cured spasms which strongly resembled
epilepsy; as witnessed by Mayerne.f! Stoerck, Collin, and others.
It produces this effect by the very same power that it excites
convulsions similar to those of epilepsy, as observed in the writings

  * The places from these authors are referred to in my Mat. Medica, i.
  ! Ibid.
  X In Hufeland's Journal, xxv. iv. pp. 70, 74.
  § Mere conjecture alone has led physicians to rank belladonna among
the remedies for gout.  The disease which  could, with justice, arrogate
to itself the name of gout, never will nor can be cured by belladonna.
  || In Hufeland's Journal, xi.
  ** Ibid. vol. i. p. 252.            !f Prax. Med. p. 23. 
56
of E. Camerarius, C. Seliger, Hunerwolf, A. Hamilton, Plan-
chon, Acosta, and others.*
  Fothergill,! Stoerck,  Hellwig,  and Ofterdinger, have used
hyosciamus  with success in  certain kinds of mental derange-
ment.  But the use of it would have been attended with equal
success  in the  hands of many other physicians, had they con-
fined it to the cure of that species of mental  alienation,  which
hyosciamus is capable of producing in its primitive effects, viz.
a kind of derangement  with stupefaction, that Van Helmont,
Wedel, J. G. Gmelin, La Serre, Hunerwolf, A. Hamilton, Kier-
nander, J.  Stedmann,  Tozzetti,  J.  Faber,  and  Wendt  saw
produced by the action of this plant.!
  By taking  the effects  of hyosciamus collectively,  which the
latter observers have seen it produce, they present a picture of
hysteria arrived at a considerable height.  We also find in  J.
A. P. Gessner, Stoerck,  and  in the  Act. Nat. Cur.§ that a case
of hysteria, which bore  great  resemblance to  the above men-
tioned, was cured by the use of this plant.
  Schenkbecherll would  never  have succeeded  in curing a
vertigo of twenty years' standing, if this plant did not possess,
in a very  high  degree, the  power of  creating  generally an
analogous state, as attested by Hunerwolf, Blom, Navier, Plan-
chon, Sloane,  Stedmann, Greding,  Wepfer,  Vicat,  and  Ber-
nigau.**
  A man, who  became deranged  through jealousy, was for a
long time tormented  by  Mayer Abramson!! with remedies that
produced no effect on him, when, under the  name of a sopo-
rific, he one day administered hyosciamus,  which cured  him
speedily.  Had he known that this plant excites  jealousy and
madness  in  persons  who are in health,!! and had  he been
acquainted with  the homoeopathic law, (the sole  natural basis
of therapeutics,) he would have been able to administer hyos-
ciamus from the very commencement with perfect confidence,

  * See my Mat. Medica, vol. iv.
  f Memoirs  of Med. Soc. of London, i. pp. 310, 314.
  ! See my Mat. Medica, vol. iv.        § IV. obs. 8.
  || Von der Kinkina, Schierling, Bilsenkraut, &c.  Riga, 1769, p. 162.
  ** See my  Mat. Medica, vol. iv.
  !! In Hufeland's Journal, xix. ii. p. 60.
  !! See my  Mat. Medica, vol. iv. 
57
and  thus have avoided  fatiguing  the  patient  with remedies
which  (not  being homoeopathic)  could be of  no manner of
service to him.
   The mixed prescriptions which  were employed for a long
time with the greatest success by Hecker*in a case of spasmodic
constriction  of the eyelids,  would have proved  ineffectual,  if
some happy chance had not included hyosciamus, which, ac-
cording to Wepfer,! excites a similar affection in persons who
are in sound health.
   Neither did Withering!  succeed  in curing a spasmodic con-
striction of  the pharynx, with inability to swallow,  until he
administered  hyosciamus,  whose  special  action  consists of
causing a spasmodic constriction of  the throat, with the impossi-
bility of swallowing, an effect which Tozzetti, Hamilton, Ber-
nigau, Sauvages,  and  Hunerwolf§ have seen  it produce in  a
very high degree.
   How could camphor produce such  salutary  effects as the
veracious Huxhamll says it does, in the so-called slow  nervous
fevers,  where the  temperature of the body is decreased, where
the sensibility is depressed, and the  vital powers greatly dimin-
ished, if the result of its immediate action upon the body did
not  produce  a  state similar  in every respect to the latter, as
observed by G. Alexander,  Cullen, and F. Hoffman ?**
   Spirituous  wines, administered  in small doses,  have cured,
homoeopathically,  fevers  that were purely inflammatory.  C.
Crivellati,!! H. Augenius,!! A. Mundella,§§ and two anonymous
writers,IIII  have afforded us the proofs.   Asclepiades**" on one
occasion cured an inflammation of the brain by administering a
small quantity of wine.  A  case of feverish delirium  like an

  * Hufeland's Journal, d. pr. Arzneik. i. p. 354.
  ! De Cicuta Aquatica.  Basil. 1716, p.  320.
  ! Edinb. Med. Comment. Dec. ii. B. vi. p.  263.
  § See my Mat. Med., vol. iv. pp. 38, 39.
  || Opera, t. i. p. 172, t. ii. p. 84.
  **  See my Materia Medica, vol. iv.
  !!  Trattato dell' uso e modo  di dare il vino nelle febri acute.  Rome,
1600.
  !!  Epist. t. n. lib.  2. ep. 8.          §§ Epist. 14. Basil, 1538.
  ||||  Eph. nat. cur. dec. ii.- ann. 2, obs. 53. Gazette de Santa. 1788
   '*• Ccsl. Aurelianus, Acut. lib. i. c.  16.
        8 
58
insensible  drunkenness, attended with  stertorous breathing,
similar to that state of deep intoxication which wine produces,
was cured in a single night by wine which Rademacher* ad-
ministered to the  patient.   Can any one deny the power of a
medicinal irritation analogous to the disease itself (similia simili-
bus) in either of these cases ?
  A strong infusion of tea produces anxiety and palpitation of
the  heart in persons who are not in the habit of drinking it; on
the other hand, if taken in small doses, it is an excellent remedy
against such symptoms when produced by other causes,  as
testified by G. L. Rau.f
  A case resembling the agonies of death, in which the  patient
was convulsed to such a degree as to deprive him of his senses,
alternating with attacks of spasmodic breathing, sometimes also
sobbing and stertorous respiration, with icy coldness of the face
and body, lividity of the feet and hands, and feebleness of the
pulse, (a  state perfectly analogous to the whole of the symptoms
which Schwei kert and others saw produced by the use of opium,)*
was at first treated unsuccessfully by Stutz§ with ammonia,
but afterwards  cured in a speedy and permanent manner with
opium.  In this  instance,  could any  one fail to discover the
homoeopathic method brought into action  without the know-
ledge of  the person who employed  it ? According to Vicat, J.
C. Grimm, and  others,|| opium  also produces  a powerful and
almost irresistible tendency  to  sleep, accompanied by profuse per-
spiration and delirium.  This was the reason why Osthoff ** was
afraid to administer it in  cases of epidemic fever which ex-
hibited similar symptoms, for the principles of the system which
he pursued prohibited the use of it under such  circumstances.
(The poor  system!)  However, after having exhausted in vain
all the known remedies, and  seeing his patients at the point of
death, he resolved, at all hazards, to administer a small quantity
of opium, whose effects proved salutary, as they always must,
according to the unerring law of homoeopathy.

  *  In Hufeland's Journal, xvi. i. p. 92.
  f  Ueber den Werth des Homceopathischen Heilverfahrens.   Heidel-
berg, 1824, p. 75.
  !  See my Mat. Med., vol. i.
  §  In Hufeland's Journal, x. iv.        ||  See my Mat. Med., i.
  ** In the Salzburg Med. Chirurg. Journal, 1805, iii. p. 110. 
59
  J. Lind* likewise avows that "opium removes the complaints
in  the  head, while the perspiration  tediously  breaks forth
during  the heat of the body;  it  relieves the  head,  destroys
the  burning  febrile  heat of the skin, softens it, and  bathes
its  surface  in a  profuse perspiration.   But  Lind  was  not
aware that this salutary effect of opium  (contrary  to  the
axioms of the  school  of medicine) is owing  to  the circum-
stance of its  producing  analogous  morbid  symptoms, when
administered  to a person in health.  There has, nevertheless,
here  and  there  been  a  physician, across whose mind  this
truth  has  passed  like  a  flash of lightning,  without  ever
giving  birth  to  a suspicion of  the  laws of homoeopathy.
For example, Alston!  says that opium  is a remedy that  excites
heat, notwithstanding which, it certainly diminishes heat where
it already exists.   De  la Guerene! administered opium in a
case  of fever attended with  violent  head-ache,  tension  and
hardness  of the  pulse, dryness and roughness of the skin, burn-
ing heat, and hence  difficult and  debilitating perspirations,
the  exhalation  of which was constantly interrupted  by the
extreme agitation of the patient; and  was successful with it,
because opium possesses the  faculty of creating a feverish
state in  healthy  persons,  which   is  perfectly  analogous, as
asserted by many observers,§  and  of which he was  ignorant.
In a fever attended with  coma, where  the patient, deprived of
speech, lay extended, the eyes open, the  limbs stiff,  the pulse
small and intermittent, the respiration disturbed and stertorous,
(all of which are  symptoms perfectly similar  to  those which
opium  excites,  according to  the  report of Delacroix, Rade-
macher, Crumpe, Pyl,  Vicat, Sauvages and many  others, II) this
was  the  only substance which C. L.  Hoffman** saw produce
any  good effects,  which were naturally a homeopathic result.
 VVirthenson,!! Sydenham,!!  and Marcus,§§ have even succeeded

   *  Versuch iiber die Krankheiten denen die Europaer in heissen Kli-
maten unterworfen sind.  Riga and Leipzig, 1773.  (Treatise on the
 Diseases to which Europeans are subject in Warm Climates.)
   ! In Edinb. Versuchen, v. p. i. art. 12.
   i In Romer's Annalen  der Arzneimittellehre, I. ii. p. 6.
   § See my Mat. Med., vol. i.            II Ibid.
   ** Von Scharbock, Lustseuche, &c.  Miinster, 1787, p. 295.
   f! Opii vires fibras cordis debilitare,  &c.  Miinster, 1775.
   !! Opera, p. 654.               §§ Magazin fur Therapie, I. i. p. 7. 
60
in curing lethargic  fevers with  opium.  A case of lethargy of
which De  Meza* effected a cure, would yield only to this sub-
stance, which,  in such cases, acts homoeopathically, since  it
produces lethargy of itself.
   C. C. Matthai,! in an obstinate case of nervous disease, where
the principal symptoms were insensibility, and numbness of the
arms, legs, and belly, after  having for a  long time treated  it
with inappropriate, that is to say, non-homoeopathic remedies,
at length effected a cure by opium, which, according to Stutz,
J. Young, and  others,! excites  similar symptoms  of a very
intense nature, and which,  as  every one must perceive, only
succeeded on this occasion by homoeopathic means.  The cure
of a case of lethargy  which had already existed several days,
and which Hufeland performed by the use of opium, § by what
other law  could this have been effected, if not by that of
homoeopathy, which has remained disregarded till the present
time?  In that peculiar species of epilepsy which never mani-
fests itself but during sleep, De Haen discovered that it was not
at all a sleep, but a lethargic stupor, with stertorous respiration,
perfectly similar to that which opium  produces in persons who
are in health ;  it was by the means of opium alone that he
transformed it into  a natural and healthy sleep, while at  the
same time he delivered the patient of his epilepsy. II
   How would it be possible that opium, which of all vegetable
substances  is the one whose administration,  in small doses,
produces the most  powerful and obstinate  constipation, as  a
primary effect, should notwithstanding be a remedy the most to
be relied upon in cases of constipation which endanger life,  if
it was not in virtue of the homoeopathic law, so little known—
that is to say, if nature had not decreed that medicines should
subdue natural diseases by a special action on their part, which
consists in  producing an analogous affection ?  Opium, whose
first effects are so powerful in constipating the bowels, was dis-
covered by Tralles** to be the  only  cure in a case of ileus,

       * Act. Reg. Soc. Med. Hafn. iii. p. 202.
       t In Struve's  Triumph der Heilk. iii.
       i See my Mat. Med. vol. i.
       § In Hufeland's Journal, xii. i.
        || Ratio Medendi, V. p. 126.
       ** Opii usus et abusus, sect. ii. p. 260. 
61
which he had till then treated ineffectually with evacuants and
other unappropriate remedies.   Lentilius* and G.  W.  Wedel,!
Wirthenson, Bell,  Heister, and Richter,! have  likewise  con-
firmed the efficacy of opium, even when administered alone in
this disease.  The  candid Bohn§ was  likewise  convinced by
experience that nothing but opiates would act as  purgatives  in
the  colic  called miserere; and the celebrated Fr. Hoffman,II
in  the  most dangerous cases of this nature, placed  his sole
reliance on opium, combined with the anodyne  liquor called
after his name.   All the theories contained in the two hundred
thousand volumes that have been written on medicine, would
they be  able to  furnish us with a rational explanation of this
and so many other similar facts, being ignorant of the thera-
peutic law of homoeopathia.  Have their doctrines conducted
us to the discovery of this law of nature so  clearly manifested
in every perfect, speedy, and permanent cure—that is to say,
have they taught us that when we use medicines  in the  treat-
ment of diseases, it is necessary to take  for a guide the resem-
blance of their effects upon a person in health, to the symptoms
of those very diseases?
  Rave** and Wedekindf! have suppressed uterine hemorrhage
with the aid of sabina, which, as every one  knows, causes
uterine hemorrhage,  and consequently  abortion  with  women
who are in health.   Could  any one, in this case, fail to perceive
the homoeopathic law which ordains that we should cure similia
similibus ?
  In that species of spasmodic asthma designated by the name
of Millar, how could musk act almost specifically, if it  did not
of itself produce paroxysms of a spasmodic constriction of the
chest without cough, as observed by F. Hoffman ?!+

  * Eph. nat. cur. dec. iii. ann. i. app. p. 131.      f Opiologia, p. 120.
  X Anfangsgriinde der Wundarzneikunde, V. § 328.—Chronische Krank-
heiten.  Berlin, 1816, ii. p. 220.  (Rudiments of Surgery, V. § 328.—
Chronic Diseases. Berlin, 1816, ii. p. 220.)
  § De Officio Medici.
  || Medicin. rat. system.  T. IV. p.  ii. p. 297.
  **  Beobachtungen und Schliisse {Observations and Conclusions),  ii.
p. 7.
  f! In Hufeland's Journal, X. i. p. 77.; and in his " Aufsaetzen," p. 278.
  XX Med. ration, system, iii. p. 92. 
62
  Could vaccination  protect us from the  small-pox otherwise
than homoeopathically ?   Without mentioning any other traits
of close resemblance which often  exist  between these  two
maladies, they have  this in common—they generally appear
but once during the course of a person's life; they leave behind
cicatrices equally deep ;  they both occasion tumefaction of the
axillary glands ; a fever that is analogous ; an inflamed areola
around each pock; and finally, ophthalmia and convulsions.
  The  cow-pock would  even destroy the small-pox on its first
appearance, that is  to say, it would  cure this already existing
malady, if the intensity of  the small-pox did not predominate
over it.  To produce this effect, then, it only wants that excess
of power which, according to the law of nature, ought to cor-
respond with the homoeopathic resemblance, in order to effect a
cure  (§. 158).   Vaccination,  considered  as a  homoeopathic
remedy, cannot, therefore,  prove  efficacious  except  when
employed previous  to the appearance of the small-pox, which
is the stronger of the two.
  In this manner it excites  a disease very analogous (and con-
sequently, homoeopathic,) to the small-pox, after whose course,
the human  body,  which, according  to custom, can only be
attacked once with a disease  of this nature, is henceforward
protected against a similar contagion.*
   It is well known that retention of urine with ineffectual efforts
to urinate is one of the  most common and painful evils which
the  use of cantharides  produces.   This point has been suffi-
ciently  established by  J. Camerarius, Baccius,  Van  Hilden,
Forest, J. Lanzoni, Van der Wiel, and Werlhoff.f Cantharides,
administered internally, and  with  precaution, ought, conse-
quently, to be a very salutary homoeopathic  remedy in  similar
 cases of painful dysury.  And this  is in reality the case.  For,
 without enumerating all the Greek physicians who, instead of

   * This mode of homoeopathic cure in antecessum  (which is called
 preservation or prophylaxy,) also appears possible in many other cases.
 For example, by carrying on our persons sulphur, we think we are pre-
 served  from the itch which is so common among wool-workers; and by
 taking as feeble a dose as  possible of belladonna, that we are protected
 from scarlet fever.
   f See my Fragmenta de viribus medicamentoium positivis.  Leipsic,
 1805, i. p. 83. 
63
our cantharides, made use of meloe cichorii, Fabricius ab Aqua-
pendente,  Capo  di  Vacca,  Riedlin, Th. Bartholin,*  Young,!
Smith,!  Raymond,!  De  Meza,ll  Brisbane,** and others,  per-
formed perfect  cures of  very painful  ischury  that  was not
dependent upon  any  mechanical  obstacle, with  cantharides.
Huxham has seen this remedy produce the best effects in cases
of the same nature ; he praises it highly, and  would willingly
have  made use of it had  not the precepts of the old school of
medicine (which, deeming itself wiser  than  nature herself, pre-
scribes in such cases soothing and relaxing remedies,) prevented
him,  contrary to his own  conviction, from using a remedy
which, in such cases, is specific or homoeopathic!!   In cases of
recent inflammatory gonorrhea, where Sachs von Lewenheim,
Hannaeus,  Bartholin,  Lister,  Mead,  and  chiefly Werlhoff,
administered  cantharides in  very  small  doses with perfect
success,  this substance  manifestly  removed the  most severe
symptoms which began to declare themselves.!!
  It produced this effect by virtue of the faculty it possesses
(according  to  the testimony  of almost every observer)  of
exciting  painful  ischury, urinary  heat, inflammation of the
urethra  (Wendt), and even, when  applied  only externally, a
species of inflammatory gonorrhea (Wichman§§).
  The application of sulphur  internally very  often occasions,
in persons of an irritable disposition, tenesmus, sometimes even

  * Epist. 4, p. 345.                 f Phil. Trans.  No. 280.
  ! Medic. Communications, ii.  p. 505.
  § In Auserlesene Abhandl. fur pract.  Aerzte (Select Treatises for
Practical  Physicians), iii. p. 460.
  || Act. Reg. Soc. Med. Hafn. ii. p. 302.
  ** Auserlesene Falle (Selected cases), Altenburg, 1777.
  f! Opera, edit. Reichel, t. ii. p. 124.
  !! I say " the most severe symptoms which began to declare them-
selves," because the subsequent treatment demands other considerations ;
for, although there may have been cases of gonorrhea  so slight as to dis-
appear very soon of themselves, and almost without any assistance what-
ever,  still there are others of a graver nature, especially that which is
become so common since the time of the   French campaigns, which
might be called gonorrhea  sycotica,  and which  is  communicated by
coition, like the chancrous disease, although of a very different nature.
  §§ Auswahl aus den Nurnberger  gelehrten Unterhaltungen, i. p. 249,
note. 
64
 attended with vomiting and griping,  as  attested by Walther.*
 It is by virtue of this property which  sulphur exhibits, that
 physicians have been  able!  to  cure  with  its aid,  dysenteric
 attacks, and hemorrhoidal diseases  attended with tenesmus, as
 observed by Werlhoff,! and according to Rave,§ hemorrhoidal
 colics.
   It is well known that the waters  at  Toeplitz, like all other
 warm sulphurous mineral waters, frequently excite the appear-
 ance of  an exanthema, which strongly resembles the itch,  so
 prevalent among persons employed in wool-working.   It is pre-
 cisely this homoeopathic virtue which they possess that removes
 various kinds of psoric eruptions.  Can  there  be any thing
 more suffocating than sulphurous fumes ?  Yet it is the vapour
 arising from  the  combustion  of  sulphur  that  Bucquetll  disco-
 vered to be the best means of  reanimating persons in a state of
 asphyxia produced by another cause.
   From the writings of Beddoes  and others, we learn that the
 English physicians found nitric acid of great utility in salivation
 and ulceration of the mouth, occasioned by the use of mercury.
 This acid could never  have proved useful in  such cases, if it
 did not of itself excite  salivation  and ulceration of the mouth.
 To  produce these effects, it is only necessary to bathe the sur-
 face of the body with it, as Scott** and Blair!! observe, and the
 same will occur if administered internally, according  to the
 testimony of Aloyn,!! Luke,§§  FerriarJII and G. Kelly.***
   Fritze!!! saw a species of tetanus produced by a bath impreg-
 nated with carbonate of potash, and A.  von Humboldt!!!  by the

  * Progr. de Sulphure et Marte, Lips. 1743, p. 5.
  f Medic. National-Zeitung, (National Med. Gazette),  1798, p.  153.
  ! Observat. de Febribus, p. 3, § 6.
  § In Hufeland's Journal, VII. ii.  p. 168.
  || Edinb. Med. Comment. IX.
  ** In Hufeland's Journal, IV. p.  353.
  !! Neueste Erfahrungen, (Most recent discoveries), Glogau, 1801.
  !! In the Memoires de la Soc. Med. d'Emulation, I. p. 195.
  §§ In Beddoes.
  |||| In the Sammlung auserles.  Abhandl.  fur pract. Aertze, (Select
 Treatises for Practical Physicians), XIX. ii.
  *** Ibid. XIX. i.          !!!  In Hufeland's Journal, XII. i. p. 116.
  !!! Versuch iiber die gereizte Muskel—und Nervenfascr, (Treatise on
the Irritability of the Muscles and Nerves,) Posen and Berlin, 1797. 
65
application of a solution of salt of tartar increased the irritability
of the muscles to such a degree as to excite tetanic spasm.
The curative power which caustic potash exercises in all kinds
of tetanus, in which Stiitz and others have found it so useful,
could it be accounted for in a more simple or rational manner
than  by the faculty  which this alkali  possesses of producing
homoeopathic effects ?
  Arsenic, whose effects  are  so powerful upon the  human
economy that we cannot decide whether it is more hurtful in
the hands of the fool-hardy than it is salutary in those of the
wise,—arsenic could never have effected so many remarkable
cures of cancer in the face, as witnessed by  numerous physi-
cians,  among whom I  will only  cite Fallopius,* Bernhardt,!
and Roennow,!  if  this  metallic  oxide did  not possess the
homoeopathic power of producing,  in  healthy persons,  very
painful tubercles, which  are cured with difficulty, as witnessed by
Amatus  Lusitanus ;§  very deep and  malignant  ulcerations,
according to  the  testimony of Heinreichll and Knape ;** and
cancerous ulcers, as testified by Heinze.f!  The ancients would
not have  been unanimous in the praise which they bestowed
on  the magnetic  arsenical plaster  of Angelus Sala!!  against
pestilential buboes and  carbuncles, if arsenic did not, according
to the report of Degner§§ and Pfann,llll give rise to inflammatory
tumours which quickly turn to gangrene, and  to carbuncles  or
malignant pustules,  as observed by  Verzascha*** and Pfann.f!!
And whence could arise that curative power  which it exhibits
in certain species  of intermittent fevers  (a virtue attested by so


  *  De Ulceribus et Tumoribus, lib. 2.   Venice, 1563.
  f  In the Journal de Medecine, chirurg. et pharm. LVII. Maich, 1782.
  J  Konigl. Vetensk. Acad. Handl.  f. a. 1776.
  §  Obs. et. Cur., cent. ii. cur. 34.          || Act. Nat. Cur. ii. obs. 10.
  ** Annalen der Staatsarzneikunde, I. i.
  tf In Hufeland's Journal for September, 1813, p. 48.
  !! Anatom. Vitrioli, t. ii. in Opera Med. Chym.  Frankfort, 1647, pp.
381, 463.
  §§ Act. Nat. Cur. VI.
  |||| Annalen der Staatsarzneykunde, loc. cit.
  *** Obs. med. cent.  Basil,  1677,  obs. 66.
  tff Samml.  Merkwiird.  Falle.   (Collection of remarkable cases.)
Nuremberg, 1750, pp. 119,  130.
       9 
66
many thousands of examples, but in the practical application of
which, sufficient precaution has  not yet been observed, and
which virtue was asserted centuries ago by Nicholas Myrepsus,
and  subsequently placed beyond  a doubt by the testimony of
Slevogt,  Molitor, Jacobi,  J. C. Bernhardt,  Jungken,  Fauve,
Brera, Darwin,  May,  Jackson,  and Fowler,)  if it did  not
proceed from its peculiar faculty of  exciting fever,  as almost
every observer of the  evils resulting  from this substance  has^
remarked, particularly Amatus Lusitanus, Degner, Buchholz,
Heun, and  Knape.*  We may confidently believe E. Alexan-
der,! when  he tells  us that arsenic is a sovereign remedy in
some cases  of  angina  pectoris,  since  Tachenius, Guilbert,
Preussius,  Thilenius, and Pyl, have seen it give rise to very
strong oppression of the chest; Greselius,! to a dyspnoea approach-
ing even to suffocation; and Majault,§ in particular, saw it pro-
duce sudden attacks of asthma  excited  by  walking, attended with
great depression of the vital powers.
   The convulsions which are  caused  by  the administration of
copper, and  those observed by Tondi, Ramsay, Fabas, Pyl, and
Cosmier, as proceeding from  the  use of aliments impregnated
with copper;  the  reiterated  attacks of  epilepsy,  which J.
Lazermell saw result  from the accidental  introduction of  a
copper coin into the stomach, and which Pfundel** saw pro-
duced by the ingestion  of  a compound of sal ammoniac and
copper into the digestive canal, sufficiently explain, to  those
physicians who will take  the trouble to reflect  upon it, how
copper has been able to cure a case of chorea, as reported by R.
Willan,!! Walcker,!! Thesussink,§§ and  Delarive,|||| and  why
preparations of copper have so frequently effected the cure of
epilepsy, as attested by Batty, Baumes, Bierling, Boerhaave,

   * See my Mat. Med. vol. ii.
   f Med. Comm. of Edinb. Dec. t. i. p. 85.
   ! Misc. Nat. Cur. dec. I. ann. 2, p. 149.
   § In the Sammlung Auserles. Abhandl. fur Aerzte, VII. 1.
   || De morbis internis capitis. Amsterdam, 1748, p. 253.
   ** In Hufeland's Journal, II. p. 264; and according to the testimony of
 Burdach, in his System of Medicine, i. Leip. 1807, p. 284.
   f! Sammlung Auserles.  Abhandl. XII. p. 62.
   i! Ibid. XI. iii. p. 672.             §§ Waarnemingen, No. 18.
   Illl In Kiihn's phys. med. Journal, January, 1800, p. 58. 
67
Causland,  Cullen, Duncan, Feuerstein, Helvetius,  Lieb, Ma-
gennis, C.  F.  Michaelis,  Reil,  Russel,  Stisser,   Thilenius,
Weissmann, Weizenbreyer,  Whithers, and others.
  If Poterius,  Wepfer, Wedel, F.  Hoffmann,  R.  a. Vogel,
Thierry, and  Albrecht, have cured a species of phthisis, hectic
fever, chronic catarrh, and mucous asthma, with stannum, it is
because this metal possesses the faculty of producing a species
of phthisis, as Stahl* has observed.   And  how could it cure
pains of the stomach,  as Geischlager says it does, if it was not
capable of exciting a similar  malady.  Geischlager himself,!
and Stahl! before him, have  proved that it does possess this
power.
  The evil effects of lead,  which produces the most  obstinate
constipation, and even the iliac passion, (as Thunberg, Wilson,
Lazuriaga, and others, inform us), do they not also give us  to
understand  that this metal possesses  likewise the virtue  of
curing these  two affections?  Like every other  medicine, it
ought  to subdue and cure, in a permanent manner, the natural
diseases which bear a resemblance to those which it  engenders,
by  reason of the faculty which it possesses of exciting morbid
symptoms.  Angelus  Sala§ cured a species of  ileus, and  J.
Agricolall another kind of constipation which  endangered the
life of the  patient,  by  administering lead internally.  The
saturnine  pills with  which  many physicians (Chirac,  Van
Helmont, Naudeau,  Pererius, Rivinus, Sydenham,  Zacutus
Lusitanus, Block, and others) cured the iliac passion  and
obstinate  constipation, did not operate merely in a mechanical
manner by reason of their  weight; for, if such had been the
sources of their efficacy, gold, whose weight  is greater than
that of lead, would have been preferable in such a case; but
the pills acted particularly as a saturnine internal remedy and
cured  homoeopathically.  If  Otto Tachenius  and Saxtorph
formerly cured cases of obstinate  hypochondriasis with the aid
of  lead, we ought to bear in mind that this metal tends of itself
to  excite  hypochondriasis, as may be seen in the description of
its  ill effects given by Lazuriaga.**

  * Mat. Med., cap. 6. p. 83.     f In Hufeland's Journal, X. iii. p. 165.
  | Mat. Med. loc. cit.         § Opera, p. 213.
  || Comment, in J. Poppii chym. med.  Lips. 1638, p. 223.
  "* Recueil period, de  Litterature, i. p. 20. 
68
   We ought not to be  surprised  that  Marcus* speedily cured
an inflammatory swelling of the tongue and  of the pharynx
with  a remedy (mercury) which, according to  the daily expe-
rience of  physicians,  has a  specific  tendency  to  produce
inflammation and tumefaction of the internal parts of  the mouth,
phenomena to which  it  gives  rise when merely applied to the
surface of the  body  in the  form of  ointment or plaster, as
experienced  by Degner,! Friese,! Alberti,§ Engel,ll  and many
others.  The weakening of the intellectual faculties (Swediauer**),
imbecility (Degner!!), and mental  alienation  (Larry+I), which
have been seen to result  from the use  of mercury, joined  to
the  almost  specific   faculty which  this metal is  known  to
possess of exciting salivation,  explain  how  W. Perfect§§  was
enabled, with  the use  of mercury, to cure in  a permanent
manner, a case of melancholy alternating with  increased secre-
tion of saliva.   How  does it happen  that preparations of mer-
cury proved so successful in the hands  of  Seelig,llll in the
treatment of angina,  accompanied with  purpura; in those  of
Hamilton,***  Hoffman,!!!  Marcus,!!!  Rush,§§§   Colden,llllll
Bailey,  and Michaelis,****  in  the treatment of other kinds  of
malignant quinsy ?  It  is  evidently because  this metal brings
on of itself a species of  angina of  the worst description.!!!!  It


   * Magazin,  II. ii.                ! Act. Nat. Cur. VI. app.
   ! Geschichte und  Versuche einer  chirurg. Gesellschaft.  (History
and Experiments of a Chirurg. Soc.)  Copenhagen, 1774.
   § Jurisprudentia Medica, V. p. 600.
   || Specimina Medica.  Berlin, 1781,  p. 99.
   ** Traite des Malad. Vener. II. p. 368.         f! Loc. cit.
   !! Memoirs and Observations in the  Description of Egypt, vol. i.
   §§ Annalen einer Anstalt fur Wahnsinnige.  (Annals of  an Institute
for Mad Persons.)  Hanover, 1804.
   |||| In Hufeland's Journal, XVI. 1. p. 24.
   *** Edinb.  Med. Comment. IX.  1, p. 8.
   !f! Medic.  Wochenblatt, 1787, No. 1.
   !!! Magazin fur Specielle Therapie, II. p. 334.
   §§§ Medic. Inquir.  and Observ. No. 6.
   Illlll Medic.  Observ. and Inquir. 1, No. 19, p. 211.
   **** In Richter's Chirurg. Biblioth. V. pp. 737—739.
   !!!! Physicians have likewise endeavoured to cure the croup by means
 of mercury ; but they generally failed in the attempt, because this metal
 cannot produce  (of  itself) in the mucous membrane of the trachea, a 
69
  is  certainly  by  homoeopathic  means that Sauter*  cured an
  ulcerous inflammation of the mouth, accompanied with aphthae
  and fcetor of the breath, similar to that which occurs in saliva-
  tion, when he prescribed a solution of corrosive sublimate as a
  gargle, and that Block! removed aphthae by the use of mercurial
  preparations, since, among other ulcerations of the mouth, this
  substance particularly produces a species of aphthce, as we are
  informed by Schlegel! and Th. Acrey.§
     Heckerll used various medicinal compounds  successfully in
  a case of caries succeeding small-pox.  Fortunately, a portion
  of mercury was contained in  each of these  mixtures, to which
  it may  be imagined that this  malady  will yield (homoeo-
  pathically) because mercury is one of the few medicinal agents
  /which excites of itself caries, as proved by the many excessive
  mercurial  courses  used against syphilis, or even against other
/ diseases, among which are those related by G. P. Michaelis.**
  This metal, which becomes so formidable when its use is pro-
  longed, on account of the caries of which  it  then becomes the
  exciting cause,  exercises,  notwithstanding,  a  very salutary
  homoeopathic influence in the caries which follows mechanical
  injuries of the bones, some very remarkable instances of which
  have been transmitted to us  by  J. Schlegel,!! Joerdens,!! and
  J. M. Muller.§§  The cure of  caries (not venereal) of another
  kind, which has likewise been effected by means of mercury
  by J. F. G. Neullll  and J. D. Metzger,*** furnishes a fresh proof
  of the homoeopathic curative virtue with which this substance
  is endowed.

  change similar to that particular modification which this disease en-
  genders.  Sidphuretum calcis, which excites cough by impeding respi-
  ration, and still more so, the tincture of sponga tosta, act more homoeo-
  pathically in  their special effects, and are consequently much more
  efficacious,  particularly when administered in  the smallest possible
  doses.  (See my Mat. Med. vi.)
     * In Hufeland's Journal, XII. ii.
     ! Medic. Bemerkungen, (Med.  Observations), p. 161.
     ! In Hufeland's Journal, VII. iv.         § Lond. Med. Journal, 1788.
     || In Hufeland's Journal, i. p. 362.        ** Ibid. June, 1809, vi. p. 57.
     f! Hufeland's Journal, v. pp. 605, 610.
     tt Ibid. X. ii.                      §§ Obs. Med. Chirur. ii. cas. 10.
     IHI Diss. Med. Pract.  Goettingae, 1776.
     *** Adversaria, p. ii. sect. 4. 
70
  In perusing the  works  which  have been  published  on the
subject  of medical  electricity,  it  is  surprising  to  see what
analogy exists between  the  morbid symptoms sometimes pro-
duced  by this agent, and the  natural diseases  which it has
cured in a durable  manner by homoeopathic  influence.   Innu-
merable are the authors who have observed that acceleration of
the  pulse is  among the first  effects of positive  electricity; but
Sauvages,* Delas,! and Barillon,! have seen  febrile paroxysms
excited by electricity.  The faculty it has of producing fever, is
the cause to which  we  may attribute  the circumstance of
Gardini,§ Wilkinson,II Syme,** and  Wesley,!! curing with it
alone a tertian fever, and likewise  the  removal  of quartan
fevers  by Zetzel!! and  Willermoz.§§  It is  also known that
electricity occasions a contraction of the muscles which resem-
bles a convulsive movement.   De Sansllll was  enabled  to  excite
even  continued convulsions  in  the arm of  a  young girl  as
often as he pleased to make the experiment.   It is  by virtue
of this  power which electricity develops, that De Sans*** and
Franklin!!! applied  it  successfully  in convulsions,  and that
Theden!!! cured with its aid a little girl ten years of  age who
lost her speech and partially the use of her left arm by light-
ning, yet kept  up  a constant involuntary  movement of the
arms and legs, accompanied  by a spasmodic  contraction of the
fingers  of the left hand.   Electricity  likewise produced a kind
of ischias, as observed by Jallobert§§§ and another;  IIIIII it has
also cured  this, affection by similarity of effect,  (homoeopa-
thically,) as confirmed by Hiortberg, Lovet, Arrigoni, Daboueix,
Manduyt, Syme, and Wesley.   Several physicians have eured
a species of ophthalmia by electricity, that is to say, by means of
the power which it has of exciting of itself inflammation of the

  * In Bertholon de  St. Lazare, Medicinische Electrisitat,  von Kiihn.
(Medical Electricity.)  Leip. 1788, t. i. pp. 239, 240.
  ! Ibid. p. 232.        ! Ibid. p. 233.          § Ibid. p.  232.
  || Ibid. p. 251.         ** Ibid. p. 250.         ft Ibid- P- 249.
  XX Ibid. p. 52.        §§ Ibid. p. 250.          |||| Ibid. p. 274.
  *** Ibid. p. 274.           !!! Recueil  sur l'Electr. Medic, ii. p. 386.
  !!! Neue Bemerkungen und Erfahrungen, iii.  (Recent Observations
and Experiments.)
  §§§ Experiences et Observations sur l'Electricite.
  |||||| Philos. Trans,  vol. 63. 
71
eyes, as observed by  P.  Dickson*  and Bertholon.f  Finally,
it has in the hands of Fushel cured varices ; and it owes this
sanative virtue  to the faculty which Jallobert! ascribes  to it
of producing varicose tumours.
  Albers relates, that a warm bath at  one hundred degrees of
the thermometer of Fahrenheit greatly reduced the burning of
an acute fever, in which the pulse beat one hundred and thirty
to the minute, and that it  brought back  the pulsation to the
number of one hundred and ten.  Loffler found  hot fomenta-
tions very useful in encephalitis occasioned by insulation or the
action of the heat of  stoves,§ and Callisenll regards  affusions of
warm water on  the head as the most efficacious of all remedies
in cases of inflammation of the brain.
  If we except those cases where ordinary physicians have dis-
covered (not by their own  research  but by vulgar empiricism)
the specific remedy for a disease which always retained  its
identity, and by whose aid they could consequently cure it in a
direct manner ; such, for example, as mercury in the chancrous
venereal disease, arnica in a malady resulting from contusions,
cinchona in intermittent fevers arising  from marsh miasmata,
sulphur  in a  recent development of itch, &c.;—I  say,  if we
except all these cases, we shall find that those which they have
cured promptly and permanently by the bounty of Providence
alone,  are  to  the mass of their other irrational  cures in the
proportion  of  one to a thousand.
  Sometimes they were conducted by mere chance to a homoeo-
pathic mode of treatment ;**  but yet they did not perceive the


  * Bertholon, loc. cit. p.  406.       f Loc. cit. ii. p. 296.
  ! Loc. cit.                     § In Hufeland's Journal, iii. p. 630.
  || Act. Soc. Med. Hafn. iv. p. 419.
  ** Thus, for example, they always imagine they can drive out the per-
spiration through the skin (which they say stops up the pores after catch-
ing cold) by administering, in the cold stage of the fever, an infusion of
the flowers of the sambucus niger, which is capable of subduing such
levers homoeopathically, and restores the patient to health.  The  cure is
most effectually and speedily performed,  without transpiration, when the
patient drinks but little of this liquor and abstains from all other medi- 
72
 law of nature by which cures of this kind are and ever must
 be performed.
   It  is  therefore  highly important  to  the  welfare  of the  human
 race, that we should examine how these cures, which are as remark-
 able for their rare occurrence as they are surprising in their effects,
 are performed.   The result is  one of the deepest interest.  The
 examples which  we have cited,  sufficiently prove, that these
 cures have never taken place  but by homoeopathic  means, that
 is to say, by the faculty of exciting a morbid  state similar to

 cines.  They  often apply repeated warm cataplasms to acute tumours
 whose excessive inflammation, attended with insupportable pain, pre-
 vents suppuration taking place.  Under the influence of this treatment
 the inflammation soon diminishes, the pain decreases, and the abscess is
 quickly formed, as may be discovered by the fluctuation and appearance
 of the surface. They imagine that they have softened the tumour by the
 moisture of the cataplasm, while they have done nothing more than destroy
 the excess of inflammation homoeopathically by the stronger heat of the
 cataplasm, and promoted suppuration.  WThy is the red oxide of mercury
 (which forms the basis of the ointment of St. Ives) of  such utility in cer-
 tain cases of ophthalmia, when of all substances there  is none more capa-
 ble of producing inflammation of the eyes 1  Is it difficult to perceive that
 in this case its action is homoeopathic 1  How could the juice of parsley
 procure instantaneous relief in cases of dysury so frequent among children,
 or in ordinary  cases  of gonorrhea, which are principally distinguished by
 painful and vain attempts to pass water, if this juice did not cure homoeo-
 pathically by the faculty which it possesses of exciting painful dysury in
 healthy persons 1 The saxifrage,  which excites an  abundant mucous
 secretion in the bronchiae and pharynx, is a salutary remedy for  the so-
 called  mucous angina;  and certain kinds of uterine hemorrhage are
 stopped by small doses of the leaves of sabina, which has the property of
 exciting metrorhagia: in both instances these remedies are applied with-
 out any knowledge of the therapeutic law of homoeopathy.  Opium,
 which produces costiveness, has been  found, in small  doses, to be one of
 the principal and most certain remedies in constipation from incarcerated
 hernia and ileus, without ever leading to a discovery of the homoeopathic
 law which is evident in such cases. Ulcers in the throat (not venereal)
have been cured homoeopathically by small doses of mercury.  Diarrhoea
 has frequently been stopped by the  use of rhubarb which produces alvine
 evacuations;  rabies  has been removed by means of belladonna, which
 excites a species of hydrophobia; and finally, coma, which is so danger-
ous in  acute  fevers, has been cured,  as if by enchantment, by a small
dose of opium, a  substance which occasions heat and stupefaction.  And
after all these examples, which speak  loudly for themselves, there  are
still physicians who  repulse homoeopathy with disdain ! 
73
the disease that was to be cured.   They have been performed
in a prompt and permanent mariner by medicines, upon which,
those who prescribed them (contrary to all the existing systems
of therapeutics) have fallen as it were by chance, without well
knowing what they were doing  or why they acted in this man-
ner.  Contrary to  their inclinations, they by this fact confirmed
the necessity of the sole law of  nature in therapeutics,  that of
homoeopathy; a law, which medical prejudices, till now, would
not permit us to search after, notwithstanding the infinite num-
ber of  facts  and  visible  signs  which ought to have pointed
towards its discovery.
   Even in the practice of domestic medicine by persons igno-
rant of our profession, but who were gifted with sound judgment
and discerning  minds, it was discovered that the homoeopathic
method of cure was  the safest, the most rational, and  the  least
subject to failure.
   Frozen  sourcrout  is frequently  applied to  a  limb  that is
recently frozen, or sometimes it is rubbed with snow.
   A cook who has scalded his hand,  exposes it to the fire at a
certain distance, without heeding the  increase of pain which it
at first occasions,  because experience has  taught  him that  by
acting thus, he can in a very short time perfectly cure the burn,
and remove every feeling of pain.*
   Other intelligent individuals, equally  strangers  to  medical
science—such,  for  example,  as the  lacker-workers,  apply a
substance to burns which excites of  itself a similar feeling of
heat, that is to say, hot alcohol or the oil of turpentine,* and by

  * Fernel (in his Therapeutics, book vi. cap. 20,) considered that the
best means to allay pain, was to expose the part that was burnt to the
fire.  John Hunter (in his work on the blood, p. 218) mentions the  great
inconvenience that results from the application of  cold water  to burns,
and prefers the method of exposing the parts  to the fire. In this he
departs from the traditional doctrines of medicine, which prescribe cool-
ing remedies in cases of inflammation (contraria contrariis); but expe-
rience proved to him that a homoeopathic heat (similia similibus) would
be most salutary.
  ! Sydenham (Opera, p. 271) says that repeated applications of alcohol
are preferable to all other remedies in burns. B. Bell  (System of Sur-
gery, 1789) expresses himself equally favourable with regard to the effi-
cacy of  homoeopathic remedies.  These  are his  words:  " Alcohol is
one of the best remedies for burns  of every description: on the first
       10 
74
  these means cure themselves in a few hours, well knowing that
  the so-called cooling ointments would  not produce the  same

  application it appears to increase the pain, (see § 160), but  the latter is
  soon allayed and gives place to an agreeable sensation of calm and tran-
  quillity.  This method is never more efficacious than when the  whole
  part is plunged into alcohol; but where the immersion is not practicable,
  it is requisite to keep the burn continually covered with pledgets imbibed
  with this liquid."  I further add, that warm, and even very hot alcohol,
  affords still more prompt and certain relief, because it  is far more
  homoeopathic  than alcohol that is  cold.  This is  confirmed  by every
L experience.
    Edward Kentish  treated several*men who were  often  dreadfully
  burned in the coal mines by the explosion of  fire-damp ; he made them
  apply hot oil of turpentine or alcohol, as being the best remedies that
  could be  used in severe  burns.  (Second  Essay  on Burns, London,
  1798.)  No treatment is more homoeopathic  than this, nor can there be
  any more efficacious.   The worthy and skilful physician  Heister also
  recommends this practice from his own personal experience, (Instit.
  Chirurg. Tom. I. p. 333); he praises the application of the oil of turpen-
  tine, of alcohol, and of cataplasms as hot as the patient can bear  them.
  But nothing can more strongly exhibit the surprising superiority  of the
  homoeopathic method (that is to say of the application of substances that
  excite a sensation of heat and  burning, to parts that  are burned) over
  the palliative,  (which consists  of cold applications), than  those simple
  experiments, where, in order to compare  the results of these two oppo-
  site proceedings, they have been simultaneously tried upon the same
  patient, and on  parts that were burned »in  an equal  degree.  Thus J.
  Bell (Kiihn's Phys. Med. Journal for June, 1801, p. 428) having to treat
  a lady  who had scalded both arms with boiling liquid, covered one with
  the oil  of turpentine,  and plunged the  other into cold water.   The
  first was  no longer painful at  the  expiration of half an  hour,  while
  the other continued so during six hours:  the moment it was withdrawn
  from the cold water the patient experienced far greater pain, and it
  required much longer time to cure this arm than it did to heal the other.
  J. Anderson (Kentish, loc. cit. p. 43) likewise treated a  woman who
  had scalded her face and arm with boiling fat.  " The face, which was
  very red and painful, was covered with oil of turpentine a  few minutes
  after the accident: as for the arm, the patient had already plunged it of
  her own accord into  cold water, and expressed a desire to await the
  result of this treatment for a few hours.  At the expiration  of  seven
  hours the face  was better, and the patient relieved in this  part.   With
  regard  to the  arm, around which the water had been several  times
  renewed,  it  became exceedingly painful  whenever it was withdrawn
  from the water, and the inflammation had manifestly increased.   The
  next day I found that the patient had suffered extreme pain in the arm; 
75
result in an  equal number of months,  and  that  cold water*
would only make the evil worse.
  An experienced reaper, however little he may be accustomed
to the use of strong liquors, will not drink cold water (contraria
contrariis) when the heat of the sun or the fatigue of hard labour
have brought him into a feverish state : he is well aware of the
danger that would ensue, and  therefore takes a small quantity
of some heating liquor—viz. a mouthful of brandy.   Experi-
ence, the source of all truth, has  convinced him of the advan-
tage and efficacy of this  homoeopathic  mode  of proceeding.
The heat and lassitude which  oppressed him, soon diminish.!
   Occasionally there have been certain physicians who guessed
that medicines might cure diseases by the faculty which they
possessed of exciting morbid symptoms that resembled  the dis-
ease itself!

inflammation had extended above the elbow, several large blisters had
burst, and a thick eschar had formed itself upon the arm and hand, which
were then covered with a warm cataplasm.  The face was no longer pain-
ful, but it was necessary to apply emollients a fortnight longer to cure the
arm."  Who does not perceive, in this instance, the great superiority of
the homoeopathic mode of treatment (that is to say, of the application of
agents which produce effects resembling the evil itself) over the antipa-
thic prescribed by the ordinary physicians of the old school of medicine ?
  * J. Hunter is not the only one who has pointed out the  evil results
that attend the treatment of burns with cold water.  Fabricius de Hilden,
(De  Combugtionibus Libellus.  Basil,  1607,  cap.  V. p. 11) likewise
assures us that cold applications are very hurtful  in such cases, that
they produce the most disastrous effects—that inflammation, suppuration,
and sometimes  gangrene are the consequences.
  ! Zimmerman  (Ueber die Erfahrung, II. p. 318) tells us that  the
inhabitants of warm countries act in the same manner,  with the most
beneficial results, and that  they usually drink a small quantity of spiritu-
ous liquors when they are much  heated.
  ! In citing the following passages of writers who have had some pre-
sentiment of homoeopathy,  I do not mean to prove the excellence of the
method, (which establishes itself without further proof), but I wish to
free myself from a reproach of having passed them over in silence to
arrogate to myself the merit of the discovery. 
76
   Thus the author of the  book 7reg»  ToVwy tuv hut ocvfyunrov,*
which forms a part of the works attributed to Hippocrates, ex-
presses himself in the following  remarkable words:  3»« t« opoia,
vova-oi; yivsrut, x.a,l Ji(iT« o^oix <ir%o<?ipz%opivx Ik iioaswruy vyixtvovroii,—
eia to l[ji.eeiv epsTot; itxvsrcci.
   Physicians of a later period have likewise known and pro-
claimed the truths  of homoeopathy.    Thus B. Boulduc,\  for
example, discovered that the purgative  properties of rhubarb
were the faculty by which this plant cured diarrhoea.
   Detharding guessed! that the  infusion of senna would cure
the colick in adults by virtue  of the faculty which it possesses
of exciting that malady in healthy persons.
   Bertholon§ informs us that in  diseases, electricity  diminishes
and  finally removes a pain which is very similar to  one which
it also produces.
   ThouryW affirms that positive  electricity accelerates  arterial
pulsation, also that  it  renders  the same  slower where it is
already quickened by disease.
  Stoerck**  was struck with the idea  that if stramonium dis-
turbs the senses and produces mental derangement in  persons
who are healthy, it  might  very easily be  administered  to
maniacs for the purpose  of restoring the senses by effecting a
change of ideas.
   The Danish physician StahlXX has, above all other writers,
expressed his conviction on this head most unequivocally.   He
speaks  in  the  following terms:—" The received  method  in
medicine, of treating diseases by opposite remedies—that is  to
say,  by medicines which are opposed to the effects they pro-
duce, (contraria contrariis),—is completely false and absurd.  I
am convinced  on the contrary, that diseases  are subdued  by
agents which  produce a similar  affection, (similia similibus):—
burns, by the heat of a fire to  which the parts are exposed; the

  * Basil, Froben, 1538, p. 72.
  f Mem. de l'Acad. Royale, 1710.
  ! Eph. Nat. Cur. cent. x. obs. 76.
  § Medic. Electricit. II. pp. 15, 282.
  || Mem. lu a l'Acad. de Caen.
  * * Libell. de Stramon. p. 8.
  ! f In J. Hummel, Comment, de Arthritide tarn tartarea, quam scor-
butica, seu podagra et scorbutico.  Budingse, 1738—in 8, pp. 40, 42. 
77
frost-bite, by snow or icy cold water; and inflammation and
contusions, by spirituous applications.  It is by these means I
have succeeded in curing a disposition to acidity of the stomach,
by using very small doses of sulphuric acid in cases where a
multitude of absorbing powders had been administered to no
purpose."
  Thus far the great truth has more than once been approached
by  physicians.  But a  transitory  idea was all that presented
itself to  them; consequently, the  indispensable reform which
ought to have taken place in the old school of therapeutics  to
make room for the true curative method and a system of medi-
cine at once simple  and  certain, has, till the present day, not
been effected. 
 
ORGANON  OF  MEDICINE.
   § 1.   The first and sole  duty of the physician is to restore
 health to the sick.*  This is the true art of healing.

  *His mission is not, as many physicians (who wasting their time and
 powers in the pursuit of fame) have imagined it to be, that of inventing
 systems by stringing together empty ideas and hypotheses  upon the
 immediate essence of life and the origin of disease in the interior of the
 human economy ; nor is it that of continually  endeavouring to account
 for  the morbid phenomena with their nearest cause (which must for ever
 remain concealed) and confounding the whole  in unintelligible words
 and pompous observations which  make a deep impression on the minds
 of the ignorant, while the patients are left to sigh in vain for relief.  We
 have already too many of these learned reveries which  bear the name
 of medical theories, and for the inculcation of which, even special pro-
 fessorships have been established.  It is  high  time that all those who
 call themselves physicians should cease to deceive suffering humanity
 with words that have no meaning, and begin to act—that is to say, to
 afford relief, and cure the sick in reality.

  § 2.  The  perfection of a cure consists in restoring health in
 a prompt, mild,  and  permanent  manner;  in  removing  and
 annihilating  disease by  the shortest, safest, and  most certain
 means upon principles that are at once plain and intelligible.

  § 3.  When the physician clearly perceives the curative indi-
 cation in each particular case of disease—when he is acquainted
 with  the  therapeutic  effects of medicines individually—when,
guided  by evident reasons, he knows  how to  make such an
application of that which is curative in medicine to  that which
is indubitably diseased in  the  patient  (both in  regard to the
choice of the substances, the  precise  dose to be administered, 
80
and the time of repeating it) that a cure may necessarily follow
—and finally when  he knows  what are the obstacles to  the
cure, and can render the latter permanent by removing them ;—
then only can he accomplish his purpose in a rational  manner—
then only can he merit the title  of a genuine physician, or a man
skilled in the art of healing.

  § 4.   The physician is likewise the guardian of health when
he knows what are the objects  that disturb  it, which produce
and keep up disease, and can remove them from persons who
are in health.

  § 5.   When  a cure is to be performed, the physician must
avail himself of all  the  particulars he can learn, both respect-
ing the probable origin of the acute malady and the most signifi-
cant points in the history of the chronic disease, to aid him in
the discovery of their fundamental cause, which is  commonly
due to some chronic miasm.   In all researches  of this nature,
he must take into consideration the apparent state of the phy-
sical constitution of the patient, (particularly when the affection
is  chronic,) the disposition,  occupation,  mode of life,  habits,
social relations, age, sexual functions, etc. etc.

  § 6.  The unprejudiced observer, (however great may be
his powers of penetration,)  aware of the futility of all elaborate
speculations  that are not  confirmed by experience, perceives
in each individual affection nothing, but  changes of the state
of the body and mind, (traces of disease, casualties, symptoms,) that
are discoverable by the senses alone,—that  is  to say, devia-
tions from the former sound  state of health, which  are felt by
the patient  himself,  remarked by the individuals around him,
and observed by the physician.   The ensemble  of these avail-
able signs represents, in its full  extent, the disease itself—that
is, they constitute the true and only form of it which the mind
is capable of conceiving.*

  * 1 cannot, therefore, comprehend  how it was possible for physicians,
without heeding  the symptoms or  taking them as  a guide in the treat-
ment, to imagine  that they ought to search the interior of the human
economy (which is inaccessible and concealed from  our view),  and
that they could  there  alone discover that which  was to be cured in 
81
 disease.   I cannot conceive  how they  could  entertain so ridiculous
 a pretension as  that of being able  to  discover the internal invisible
 change that had taken place, and  restore the same  to  the order of
 its  normal condition by the aid of medicines, without ever troubling
 themselves very  much about the  symptoms, and that they should have
 regarded such a method as the only means  of performing a radical and
 rational cure. Is not that which manifests itself in disease, by symp-
 toms, identified with the change itself which  has  taken  place in the
 human economy, and which it is impossible to discover without their
 aid?   Do not the symptoms of disease, which  are sensibly cognizable,
 represent to the physician the disease itself?  When he can neither see
 the spiritual essence, the vital power which produces  the disease,  nor
 yet the disease itself, but simply perceive and  learn its morbid effects,
 that he may be able to treat it accordingly ?  What would the old school
 search out farther from the hidden interior for a prima causa morbi,
 whilst they reject and superciliously despise the palpable and intelligible
 representation of the disease, the symptoms which clearly announce
 themselves to us as the object of cure ?   What  is there besides these in
 disease which they have to cure ?**
  ** The physician who engages in a search after the hidden springs of the inter-
 nal economy will hourly bo deceived; but the homceopathist, who with due atten-
 tion  seizes upon the faithful image of the entire group of symptoms, possesses
 himself of a guido that may be depended on, and whon he has succeeded in
 destroying the whole of them, ho may be certain that he has likewise annihilated
 the  internal and hidden cause of disease."  (Rau, loc. cit. p. 103.)

   § 7.   As in a disease where no  manifest or  exciting cause
 presents  itself for removal, (causa occasionalis1) we can perceive
 nothing but the  symptoms,  then  must these symptoms alone
 (with due attention to the  accessory  circumstances, and the
 possibility of the existence of a miasm)  (§ 5) guide the physician
 in the choice of  a fit remedy to  combat the  disease.   The
 totality of the  symptoms, this image of the immediate essence of
 the  malady reflected externally, ought to be the principal or sole
object by which  the  latter could make known the medicines it
stands in need  of—the only agent to determine the choice of a
 remedy that would be most  appropriate.   In  short, the ensem-
ble3  of the  symptoms is the  principal and sole object  that a
physician  ought  to have in view in every case of disease—the
power of his art  is to be directed against that  alone in order  to
cure and transform it into health.
  1 It is taken for granted that  every intelligent physician will  com-
mence by removing this causa  occasionalis; then the indisposition
usually yields of itself.  Thus it is necessary to remove  flowers from the
       11 
82
room when their "odours occasion paroxysms of fainting and hysteria, to
extract from the eye the foreign substance which occasions ophthalmia;
remove the tight bandages  from a wounded limb which threatens gan-
grene, and  apply others more suitable;  lay bare and tie up a wounded
artery where hemorrhage produces fainting; evacuate the berries of bel-
ladonna, &c. which may have been swallowed, by vomiting; extract the
foreign particles which have introduced themselves into the openings of
the body, (the nose, pharynx, ears, urethra, rectum, vagina); grind down
a stone in the bladder; open  the imperforate anus of  the  new born
infant, &c.
  2 Not knowing at times what plan to adopt in disease, physicians have
till now endeavoured to suppress or annihilate some  one  of the various
symptoms which appeared.   This method  which is known by the name
of the symptomatic, has very justly excited universal contempt, not only
because no advantage is  derived from  it, but because it gives  rise to
many bad  consequences.  A single existing symptom is no more the
disease itself, than a single leg constitutes the entire of the human body.
This method is so much the more hurtful in its effects, that in attacking
an isolated symptom, they make use solely of  an opposite remedy, (that
is to say, of antipathies or palliatives,) so that after an  amendment of
short duration the evil bursts forth again worse than before.

   § 8.  It  is not  possible to  conceive or prove by any  ex-
perience,  after the cure  of the  whole of  the  symptoms of a
disease,  together with  all  its perceptible changes,  that there
remains or possibly can remain any other than  a healthy state,
or that the morbid alteration which has taken  place in the inte-
rior of the economy has not been annihilated.*
  * In one who has thus been restored from sickness by a genuine phy-
sician, so that no trace  of disease,  no morbid  symptom any longer
remains and every token of health has again durably returned, can it for
a moment be supposed, without offering an insult to common  sense,  that
the entire  corporeal disease still resides in  such an individual?  and yet
Hufeland, at the head of the old school, makes this identical assertion
(in his work on Homoeopathy, p. 27, 1. 19) in the  following words, viz.
"The  homoBopalhist may  remove the symptoms, but the  disease will
still remain."  He affirms this partly out of mortification at the progress
and salutary  effects of homoeopathy, and  partly  because he entertains
wholly material ideas  of  disease, which  he  is unable to  regard as an
immaterial change in the organism, produced by the morbid derangement
of the vital power; he does not consider it as a changed condition of the
organism, but  as a material something, which, after the cure  is com-
pleted, may yet continue to lurk in some internal corner of the body, in
order one day or other,  at pleasure,  and during  a  period of bloom-
ing health, once  more to burst forth with its material  presence !   So 
83
shocking is still the delusion of the old pathology !  That such a one
only could produce a therapeutica, solely intent upon cleansing out the
poor patient, is not surprising.

  § 9.   In the healthy condition  of man, the immaterial vital
principle which animates the material body, exercises an abso-
lute sway and maintains  all its parts in the most admirable
order and harmony,  both  of sensation  and  action, so that
our indwelling rational spirit may freely employ these  living,
healthy organs for the superior purposes of our existence.

  § 10.  The material organism deprived of its vital principle,
is incapable of sensation, action, or self-preservation* ; it is the
immaterial vital principle only,  animating the former in its
healthy and morbid  condition, that imparts  to  it all sensation
and enables it to perform its functions.

  * It is then dead and subjected to the physical  laws of the  external
world; it suffers decay and is again resolved  into its  constituent ele-
ments.

  § 11.  In disease  this spontaneous and immaterial vital prin-
ciple pervading the physical organism, is primarily deranged
by the dynamic influence  of a morbific agent which is inimical
to life.  Only the vital principle thus disturbed,  can give to the
organism its  abnormal sensations  and incline it to the irregular
actions which we call disease;  for as an  invisible principle
only cognizable through its operations in the organism, its mor-
bid disturbances can be perceived solely  by means of the ex-
pression of disease in the sensations and actions of that  side  of
the organism exposed to the senses of the  physician and by-
standers, in other words, by the morbid  symptoms, and  can be
indicated in no other manner.

  § 12.  It is solely the morbidly affected vital  principle which
brino-s forth diseases,* so that the expression of disease, percepti-
ble  by the senses, announces at the same  time  all the internal
change, that is,  all the morbid perturbations of  the  vital prin-
ciple ;  in short, it displays the entire disease.   Consequently,
after a cure is effected, the cessation of all morbid expression,
and of all  sensible  changes which are  inconsistent with the 
84
healthy performance of the functions, necessarily pre-supposes,
with an equal degree of certainty,  a restoration of the vital
principle to its state of  integrity and the  recovered health of
the whole organism.

  * In what manner the vital principle produces  morbid indications in
the system, that is, how it produces disease, is to the physician a use-
less question, and therefore  will ever remain unanswered.  Only that
which is necessary for him to know of the disease, and which is fully
sufficient for the purpose of  cure, has the Lord of life rendered evident
to his senses.

   § 13.  Disease,  therefore, (those forms of it not  belonging
to manual surgery,) considered as it  is by the alloeopathists as
something separate from the living organism and the vital prin-
ciple which animates it, as something hidden internally, and
material, how subtile soever its  nature may be supposed, is a
non-entity, which could only be conceived in heads of material
mould, and which for ages, hitherto,  has given to medicine all
those pernicious  deviations which constitute  it a mischievous
art.

   § 14.  There is no curable malady, nor any invisible morbid
change, in the interior of man,  which admits of cure, that is
not made known by morbid indications or symptoms to the
physician of accurate observation—a provision entirely in con-
formity with the infinite goodness of the all-wise Preserver of
men.

   § 15.  The sufferings of the immaterial vital principle which
animates the interior of our bodies, when it is  morbidly dis-
turbed, and  the  mass of symptoms produced by  it in the
organism, which  are externally  manifested, and  represent the
actual  malady, constitute a whole—they are one and the same.
The organism is,  indeed, the material instrument of life; but
without that animation which is derived from the instinctive
sensibility and control of the vital principle, its existence is as
inconceivable as that of a vital principle without an organism;
consequently, both constitute a unit—although, for the sake of
ease in comprehension, our minds may separate this unity into
two ideas.
c 
85
   § 16.  By the operation of injurious influences, from without,
upon the healthy organism, influences which disturb the har-
monious play of the functions, the vital principle, as a spiritual
dynamis, cannot otherwise be assailed and affected than in a
(dynamic) spiritual manner ; neither can such morbid  disturb-
ances, or in other words, such diseases, be removed by the physi-
cian, except in like manner, by means of the spiritual (dynamic
virtual) countervailing agency of the suitable medicines acting
upon the same vital principle, and this action is communicated
by the sentient nerves every where distributed in the organism;
so that curative medicines possess the faculty of  restoring, and
do actually restore health, with concomitant functional harmony,
by a dynamic influence only, acting upon the vital energies, after
the morbid alterations in the  health of the patient which are
evident  to the senses  (the  totality of the symptoms) have
represented the disease to the attentive and observant physician
as fully as may be requisite to effect  a cure.


   § 17.  As the  cure  which  is effected by the annihilation of
all the symptoms of a disease removes  at the same time  the
internal  change upon which the disease  is founded—that is to
say, destroys it in its totality1—it is acccordingly clear, that the
physician  has nothing more  to do than destroy the totality of
the symptoms in order to effect a  simultaneous removal of the
internal  change—that is, to annihilate the disease itself.  But
by destroying disease we restore health, the first and  sole duty
of the  physician who  is  sensible  of the importance of his
calling, which consists in affording relief  to his fellow mortals,
and not in discoursing dogmatically.2

  ' A dream, a presentiment resulting from a superstitious imagination,
a solemn prediction, impressing a person with the belief that he will in-
fallibly die on a certain day and at a certain hour, have often produced
the embryo of the growing disease, the signs of approaching death, and
even death itself at the hour prognosticated.  Such effects could never
take place without some change having been operated in the interior of
the body, corresponding with the state which manifested itself externally.
In cases of this nature, it has also sometimes happened, that by deceiving
the patient or insinuating a contrary belief, it has succeeded in dissipating
all the morbid appearances which announced the approach of death, and
suddenly restored him to health: circumstances that  never could have 
86
taken place without annihilating at the same time, by this moral remedy,
the internal morbid change of which death was to be the result.
  2 The wisdom and goodness of the Creator in the cure of disease to
which man is subject, could not be more manifest than in developing to
the physician the incidents, in the malady to be removed, openly to the
observation of the physician in order for their removal and the conse-
quent restoration of health. But what would be thought of those divine
attributes if (as  the prevalent  school of medicine,  hitherto affecting a
supernatural insight of the internal nature of things, have pretended,) he
had veiled what  is to be cured in disease  in mystic darkness, wrapt it
in concealment within, and thus rendered it impossible for man to know
distinctly the malady, and the cure equally impossible.

   § 18.  From this  incontrovertible  truth, that beyond  the
totality of  the symptoms there is  nothing discoverable in
diseases by which they could make known the nature of the
medicines they stand in need of, we ought naturally to conclude
that there can be no other indication whatever than the ensemble
of the symptoms  in each  individual  case to guide us  in  the
choice of a remedy.

   § 19.  As  diseases  are  nothing  more  than  changes in the
general state of the human economy which declare themselves by
symptoms, and the cure being impossible except by the conver-
sion of the diseased state into one of health, it may be readily con-
ceived that  medicines  could never cure disease if they did not
possess the faculty of changing the general state of the system,
which consists of sensation  and  action, and that their curative
virtues are owing to this faculty alone.

   § 20.  By a  mere effort of the mind we could never discover
this  innate  and hidden faculty of  medicines—this spiritual
virtue by which they can modify the  state of the human body
and even cure disease.  It is by experience only, and observa-
tion of the effects produced by their  influence on the  general
state of the economy, that we  can either discover  or  form to
ourselves any clear conception of it.

   § 21.  The  curative powers  of  medicines  being  nowise
discoverable in themselves, a fact which few will  venture to
dispute, and the pure experiments which  have been made even
by the  most  skilful  observers not exhibiting  any thing to our 
87
view which could be capable of rendering them medicines or
curative  remedies,  except the faculty  which they possess of
producing manifest changes in the general state of the human
economy, particularly with persons in  health, in whom they
excite morbid symptoms of a very decided character ; we ought
to conclude  from this, that when medicines act as  remedies
they cannot  exercise  their curative virtue but by the faculty
which they  possess of  modifying the  general  state of the
economy, and  giving birth  to peculiar symptoms.  Conse-
quently,  we ought to rely solely upon the morbid appearances
which medicines excite  in healthy persons, the only possible
manifestation of the  curative virtues  which they possess, in
order to  learn what malady each of them produces individually,
and at the same time  what diseases they are capable of curing.

   § 22.  But, as we can discover nothing to  remove in disease
in order to change it into health, except the ensemble of the
symptoms ; as we also perceive nothing curative in medicines
but their faculty of producing morbid  symptoms in persons
who are healthy, and of removing them from those  who are
diseased, it very naturally follows  that medicines assume the
character of remedies, and  become capable of annihilating
disease in no other manner than by exciting  particular appear-
ances and symptoms ;  or  to express it  more clearly,  a certain
artificial disease which destroys the previous symptoms—that
is to say, the natural disease which they intend  to cure.  On
the other hand, if we wish to destroy the entire symptoms of a
disease, we ought to  choose a medicine which has a  tendency
to  excite similar  or  opposite  symptoms, according to that
which experience may point out to us as the easiest, safest, and
most  permanent means  of removing  the  symptoms of the
disease, and of restoring health, whether  it be by opposing to
the latter medicinal symptoms that are similar or contrary.*

  * Besides these two, there is no other mode of applying medicines in
disease but the alloeopathic, and in this latter, remedies are administered
which produce symptoms that bear no reference whatever to those of the
disease itself,  being neither similar nor contrary, but wholly heteroge-
neous.  I have already shown, in  the Introduction, that this method is
an imperfect imitation of the still more imperfect attempts made by the
unintelligent vital powers (when abandoned to their own resources) to 
88
save themselves at all hazards, a power to which the  organism was
confided merely to preserve its harmony  so long as  health continued.
However inapplicable this method may be, it has for so long a  time
been practised  by the existing school of medicine, that the physician
can no more pass over it unnoticed, than the historian can be silent on
the oppression  to which  mankind has been  subject for thousands  of
years beneath the'absurd rule of despotic governments.

   § 23.  From pure experience and the most careful  experi-
ments that have been tried, we learn that the existing  morbid
symptoms,  far  from being  effaced  or  destroyed by contrary
medicinal  symptoms  like  those  excited by  the  antipathic,
enantiopathic, or  palliative methods, they, on the  contrary,
re-appear more intense than  ever, after  having for a short
space of time undergone apparent amendment.   (Vide § 58—
62, and 69.)

   § 24.  There  remains,  accordingly,  no other  method of
applying  medicines profitably  in diseases than  the homoeo-
pathic,  by means of which  we  select  from all others that
medicine (in order  to direct  it  against the entire  symptoms of
the  individual  morbid  case)  whose  manner of acting upon
persons in  health   is  known,  and  which has the power of
producing  an artificial malady the nearest in resemblance to
the natural disease before our eyes.

   § 25.  Plain  experience,*  an infallible oracle in  the  art of
healing, proves to  us,  in  every  careful experiment, that the
particular medicine  whose action  upon persons in  health
produces the greatest number  of symptoms resembling those of
the  disease which  it is intended to cure, possesses, also, in
reality,  (when administered in  convenient doses,) the power of
suppressing, in a radical, prompt,  and permanent  manner, the
totality  of these morbid symptoms—that is to  say, (§ 6—16.)
the whole of  the existing disease ; it also  teaches us that all
medicines cure the  diseases whose symptoms  approach nearest
to their own, and that among the latter none admit of exception.
  * I do not mean that kind of experience acquired by our ordinary
practitioners after having  long combated, with a heap of complicated
prescriptions, a  multitude of diseases which they never examined with
care, and which (true  to the errors of the old school) they  regarded as 
89
being already included in our pathology, thinking that they perceived ia
them some imaginary morbific principle, or some internal anomaly not
less hypothetical.  In fact, they were in the habit of seeing something,
but  they knew  not what they saw, and  they  arrived at conclusions
which a deity alone could unravel in the midst of so great a concourse
of diverse powers acting upon an unknown subject, a result from which
no information was to be gained.  Fifty years of such experience are
like fifty years passed in looking through a kaleidoscope, which, full of
unknown  things of varied colours, revolves continually  upon itself:
there would be  seen  thousands of figures  changing their forms  every
instant without a possibility of accounting for any one of them.

   § 26.  This phenomenon  is  founded on the natural law of
homoeopathy—a law unknown  till the  present time, although
it has on all occasions formed the basis of every visible cure—
that is to say, a dynamic disease in the living  economy of man is
extinguished  in  a permanent  manner  by  another that is  more
powerful, when  the  latter, (without being of the  same  species,)
bears a strong resemblance to it in its mode of manifesting itself*

   * Physical and moral diseases are cured in the same manner.  Why
does the brilliant planet Jupiter disappear in the twilight from the eyes
of him who gazes at it ?  Because a similar but more potent power, the
light of breaking day,  then acts upon these organs.  With what are we
in the habit of flattering the olfactory nerves when offended by disagree-
able odours?  With snuff, which affects the nose in a  similar  manner
but more powerfully.  Neither  music nor confectionery will overcome
the disgust of smelling,  because  these objects  have affinity with the
nerves of other  senses.   By what means  does  the soldier cunningly
remove from the ears  of the compassionate spectator the  cries of him
who runs the gauntlet?  By the piercing tones of the fife, coupled  with
the noise of the drum.   By what means do they drown  the distant roar
of the enemy's cannon, which carries terror to the heart of the soldier?
By the deep-mouthed clamour of the big drum.  Neither the compassion
nor the terror  could be  suppressed by  reprimands or a distribution of
brilliant uniforms.  In the same  manner, mourning and  sadness are
extinguished in  the soul when the news  reach  us (even  though  they
were false) of a still greater misfortune occurring  to another.  The evils
resulting from an excess of joy  are mitigated by coffee, which, of itself,
disposes the mind to  impressions that  are happy.  The  Germans, a
nation which had for centuries  been plunged in  apathy and slavery by
their princes—it was not till after they had been bowed to  the dust by
the tyranny of the  French invader,  that a sentiment of the dignity of
man could be awakened within them, or that they could once more arise
from their abject condition.
       12 
90
   § 27.   The  curative  powers of  medicines  are  therefore
 grounded upon  the faculty which  they possess of creating
 symptoms similar to those of the  disease itself, but which are
 of a more intense nature.   (§ 12—26.)   It necessarily follows,
 that disease  cannot be destroyed or cured in a certain, radical,
 prompt and  permanent manner, but by the aid of a medicine
 which is capable of exciting the entire group of symptoms
 which bear the closest resemblance to those of the disease,  but
 which possess a still greater degree of energy.

   §  28.   As this therapeutic law of  nature clearly  manifests
 itself in  every  accurate experiment and  research, it  conse-
 quently  becomes an  established  fact, however unsatisfactory
 may be the scientific theory of the manner  in which it takes
 place.  I attach  no value  whatever  to  any explanation that
 could be given  on this  head;  yet the  following  view  of the
 subject appears to me to be the most reasonable, because it is
 founded upon experimental premises.

   §  29.   Every  disease  (which  does  not belong  exclusively to
 surgery,) being a purely dynamic and peculiar change of the vital
powers in regard to the manner in zohich they accomplish sensation
 and  action, a change that  expresses itself by symptoms which are
perceptible to the senses, it therefore follows, that the homeopathic
 medicinal agent, selected by a skilful physician, will convert it into
 another medicinal disease which is analogous,  but rather more
 intense*  By this means, the  natural morbific power which had
previously existed, and which was nothing more than a dynamic
power without substance,  terminates, while the medicinal disease
 which usurps its place being  of such a nature as to be  easily sub-
 dued by the vital powers, is likewise  extinguished in its turn, leav-
ing in its primitive state of integrity and health the essence or sub-
 stance which  animates and preserves the body.   This hypothesis,
 which is highly probable, rests upon the following facts.

  * The brief operation of the artificial morbific powers, which are
 denominated medicinal, although they are stronger than natural diseases,
 renders it possible that they may,  nevertheless, be more easily over-
powered  by the  vital  energies  than the latter, which are weaker.
Natural diseases, simply because of their more tedious and burthensome
 operation (as  psora, syphilis, sycosis), cannot be overcome  or  extin- 
91
guished by the unaided vital energies,  until these are  more strongly
aroused by the physician, through the medium of a  very similar yet
more  powerful morbific agent (a homoeopathic medicine).  Such  an
agent, upon its administration, urges, as  it were, the insensate, instinc-
tive vital energies, and is substituted  for the natural  morbid affection
hitherto existing.  The vital energies now become affected by  the medi-
cine alone, yet transiently; because its effect (that is to say, the natural
course  of the  medicinal disease thereby excited,) is of short duration.
Those  chronic  diseases which (according to  § 46) are  destroyed  on the
appearance of  small-pox and measles, (both of which run a course of a
few weeks only,) furnish similar instances of cure.

   § 3.0.  Medicines (particularly as  it depends on  us to vary
the doses according to  our own will), appear to have greater
power in affecting the state of health than the natural  morbific
irritation; for natural  diseases  are cured  and  subdued  by
appropriate medicines.

   § 31.  The physical  and  moral  powers,  which  are called
morbific agents,  do not possess  the faculty of changing the
state of health unconditionally ;*  we do  not fall sick  beneath
their influence before the  economy  is sufficiently disposed and
laid open to the attack of morbific causes, and will allow itself
to be placed  by  them  in  a state  where the sensations which
they undergo, and the actions which they perform,  are  different
from  those which  belong  to it in  the  normal  state.  These »
powers, therefore, do not excite disease in all men, nor  are they
at all times the cause of it in the same individual.

  * When I say that disease is an aberration or a discord in the state
of health, I do not pretend by that to give a metaphysical explanation of
the immediate essence of diseases generally, or of any morbid case  in
particular.  In  making use of this term, I merely intend to point at that
which diseases are not, and cannot be ;  or to express what I  have just
proved, that they are not mechanical or chemical changes of the material
substance of the body, that they do not depend upon a morbific material
principle, and that they are solely spiritual and dynamic changes  of the
animal economy.

   § 32.  But it is quite otherwise with the  artificial  morbific
powers which we call medicines.   Every real medicine will  at
all times,  and under every  circumstance,  work  upon  every
living  individual, and  excite in  him the  symptoms  that are 
92
 peculiar to it, (so as to be clearly manifest to  the senses when
 the dose is powerful enough,) to such a degree, that the whole
 of the  system  is always (unconditionally) attacked, and,  in  a
 manner, infected by the medicinal  disease, which, as I have
 before said, is not at all the case in natural diseases.

   §  33.  It is therefore fully proved by every experiment,* and
 observation, that the state of health is far more susceptible of
 derangement from the effects of medicinal  powers than from
 the influence of morbific principles and contagious miasms ; or
 what is the same thing, the ordinary morbific principles have only
 a conditional and often very subordinate influence, while the medi-
 cinal powers exercise one that is absolute, direct, and greatly supe-
 rior to that of the former.
   * The following is a striking observation of the kind directly in point:
 previously to the year  1801, the genuine smooth scarlet fever of Syden-
 ham prevailed epidemically among  children, and attacked all, without
 exception, who had not escaped the disease in a former epidemic;
 whereas, every child who was exposed to one of the kind which came
 under my observation in Konigslutter, remained exempt from this highly
 infectious disease, if it had timely taken a very small dose of belladonna.
 When a medicine  can thus  evince a prophylactic property against the
 infection of a prevalent disease, it must exercise a predominating influ-
 ence over the vital power.

   §  34.   In artificial diseases produced  by medicines, it is not
 the greater degree of intensity that  imparts to them the power
 they  possess of curing  those which are natural.  In order
 that the  cure   may be  effected, it is indispensable that the
 medicines  be able to produce in the human body an artificial
 disease, similar to that which is to be cured;  for it is this resem-
 blance alone, joined to the greater degree of intensity of the
 artificial disease, that gives to the latter  the faculty of substi-
 tuting itself in the place of the former, and thus obliterating it.
 This is so  far a fact, that even nature herself cannot cure an
existing disease by the excitement of a new one that is dissimi-
lar, be the  intensity of the latter ever so great; in the same
manner the physician is incapable of effecting a cure when he
applies medicines that have not the power of creating in healthy
persons a morbid state,  resembling  the disease  which is before
him. 
93
  § 35.  In  order to illustrate  these  facts,  we will examine
successively in three different cases the proceedings of nature
where two natural diseases that  are dissimilar meet together in
the same patient, and also the results of the ordinary treatment
of disease with alloeopathic medicines which are incapable of
exciting an artificial morbid state, similar to that of the disease
which is to be cured.  This examination will fully prove, on
the one  hand, that it is not even in the power of nature herself
to cure an  existing disease by one that is  dissimilar, be the
intensity of the latter ever so great, and on the other, that even
the most energetic medicines, when not homoeopathic, are inca-
pable of effecting a cure.

   §. 36 I.  If the two dissimilar diseases which meet together
in the human body have an unequal power, or if the  oldest of
them is stronger than the other, the new disease will be repulsed
from the body by that which existed before it, and will not be
able to establish itself there.  Thus a person already afflicted
with a severe chronic disease, will never be subject to an attack
of slight autumnal dysentery or any other epidemic.  Accord-
ing to Larry,* the plague peculiar to the Levant never breaks
out in places where scurvy prevails, nor does it  ever  infect
those who labour  under  herpetic  diseases.   According  to
Jenner, the rickets prevent vaccination from taking effect, and
Hildebrand informs us that persons suffering under phthisis are
never attacked with epidemic fevers, except when the latter are
extremely violent.
   * Mem.  and Observ. in the Description of Egypt, torn. i.

   § 37.   In the same manner, a chronic disease, of long stand-
ing, will  not yield to the ordinary mode of  cure by alleopathic
remedies, that is to say, by medicines which are incapable of
producing in healthy persons a state analogous to that by which
it is characterised.   It resists a treatment of this kind,  provided
it be not too violent,  even prolonged during several  years.
Practice verifies this assertion, it therefore requires no examples
to support it.

   § 38, II.   If  the new disease, which is dissimilar to the old,
be more powerful than the latter, it will then cause its suspension 
94
until the new disease  has either performed its own course or
is cured ; but then the old disease reappears.   We are informed
by Tulpius1  that two  children having  contracted tinea, ceased
to experience any further attacks of epilepsy to which they had
till then been subject; but as soon as the eruption of the head
was removed,  they were again  attacked as before.   Schoepf
saw the itch  disappear  when  scurvy manifested itself, and
return  again after the  cure of the latter disease.2  A violent
typhus  has suspended the progress of ulcerous phthisis, which
resumed its  march  immediately  after the  cessation of  the
typhoid  disease.3  When madness manifests itself during  a
pulmonary disease, it effaces the phthisis with all  its symptoms;
but when the mental alienation ceases, the pulmonary disease
again rears its head and kills the patient.4  Where the measles
and the small-pox exist together, and  have  both attacked the
same infant,  it is  usual for the measles, which have  already
declared themselves,  to  be arrested by the  small-pox which
bursts forth, and.not to resume their course until after the cure
of the  latter;  on  the other hand, Manget5  has also  seen the
small-pox, which had fully developed itself  after inoculation,
suspended  during  four  days by the measles which intervened,
and after the desquamation of which,  it revived again to run
its  course.    The  eruption of  measles  on the sixth  day after
inoculation has been known to arrest the inflammatory opera-
tion of the  latter, and  the small-pox did not break out until the
other exanthema had  accomplished its seven days' course.6  In
an epidemic,  the measles broke out among several patients four
or five  days  after  inoculation, and retarded until their entire
disappearance the eruption of the small-pox, which subsequently
proceeded in a regular manner.7  The true scarlet fever of
Sydenham,8 with angina, was arrested on the fourth  day by
the  manifestation  of  the cow-pock, which went through its
natural  course ;  and not before its termination did the scarlet
fever manifest itself again.  But as these  two diseases appear
to be of equal force, the cow-pock has likewise been  seen to
suspend itself on the  eighth day  by the eruption of genuine
scarlatina, and the red areola  was  effaced until the scarlatina
had  terminated its career, at which  moment the cow-pock
resumed its course, and terminated regularly.9  The cow-pock
was on  the  point of attaining to  its state of  perfection on the 
95
 eighth day when  measles  broke  out,  which  immediately
 rendered  it stationary, and  not before the  desquamation of
 which did it resume and finish its course;  so that, according
 to the report of Kortum,10 it presented on the sixteenth day the
 aspect which  it  usually wears' on  the tenth.   The  vaccine
 virus has  been known to infect the system even where the
 measles  had  already made their  appearance, but it  did not
 pursue its course until the measles had  passed away ;  for this
 we have also the authority of Kortum.11
   I have myself had an opportunity of seeing a parotid angina
 disappear immediately after the development of the cow-pock.
 It was not till  after the  cow-pock had  terminated,  and the
 disappearance of the red areola of  the  vesicles,  that  a great
 swelling, attended with  fever,  manifested itself in the parotid
 and  sub-maxillary glands, which  ran its ordinary course of
 seven days.
   It is the same in all diseases  that are dissimilar ;  the stronger
 one  suspends the  weaker, (except in cases where  they blend
 together,  which rarely occurs in acute diseases); but they never
 cure each other reciprocally.

  1 Obs. lib. i. obs. 8.                * In Hufeland's Journal, XV. ii.
  3 Chevalier, in Hufeland's neuesten Annalen der franz. Heilkunde.
 ii. p. 192.
  4 Mania phthisi superveniens earn cum omnibus suis phsnomenis
 aufert, verum mox redit phthisis  et occidit, abeunte  mania.  Reil,
 Memorabilia Fasc. III. v. p. 171.
  6 Edinb. Med. Comment.  T. I. i.
  6 J. Hunter on the Venereal Disease.
  7 Rainey, Edinb. Med. Comment, iii. p. 480.
  8 It has also been very accurately described by Withering and Plenciz,
and differs greatly from purpura, to which they often give the  name of
scarlet fever.  Only within the last few years have both, originally very
different diseases,  approached  more or less to each other  in their
symptoms.
  9 Jenner, in the Annals of Medicine for August, 1800, p. 747.
  10 In Hufeland's Journal, XX. iii. p. 50.          u Loc. cit.

  § 39.  The ordinary schools  of medicine have witnessed  all
these effects during whole centuries.  They have seen that
nature was never in any instance capable of curing a disease
by  adding  another, whatever  degree of intensity the latter 
96
might possess, if it was not similar  to the pre-existing disease.
What opinion, then, ought  we to  form of these schools of
medicine, which continued,  notwithstanding, to treat chronic
diseases  with alloeopathic remedies—that is to say, with sub-
stances which were scarcely  ever able to excite any thing else
but a disease dissimilar to the  affection  that was to be cured ?
And though physicians had never before regarded nature with
a due share of attention, would it not still have been possible
for them to discover, from the miserable results of their mode
of treatment,  that they  were pursuing  a  wrong path, which
could only lead them still farther from their purpose ?  Could
they not  see that in having recourse (according to their usual
practice) to violent alloeopathic remedies in chronic  diseases,
they  did nothing more than  provoke  an  artificial malady
dissimilar to the  primitive  disease, which  certainly had  the
effect of extinguishing  the latter so  long as the other continued
to exist,  but which  suffered it  to reappear  as  soon as  the
diminished powers of the patient could  no longer support the
vigorous attacks of alloeopathy on the vital principle 1  It is in
this manner that strong purgatives, frequently repeated, cause
eruptions of the skin to disappear pretty quickly; but when the
patient can no longer endure  the  dissimilar disease  that  has
been violently kindled in the vitals, and is compelled to discon-
tinue the  purgatives, then the  cutaneous   eruption  either
flourishes again in  its former  vigour, or the internal  psoric
affection  manifests itself by some  bad  symptom or  another,
while, in addition  to the primitive malady, (which is not in the
least  degree diminished,)  indigestion  ensues, and  the  vital
powers are exhausted.  Thus, also, when ordinary physicians
insert setons, and excite ulceration  of the surface of the body,
for the  purpose  of destroying  chronic diseases, they never
accomplish the object they have in view—that is to say, they
never perform a cure, because those factitious cutaneous  ulcers
are perfectly foreign and alloeopathic to the internal disease ;
but the  irritation  produced  by many cauteries  being often a
more powerful disease  than  the  primitive morbid state,
(although at the same time dissimilar,) it  frequently has  the
power of silencing the latter for a short time, which is nothing
more than a suspension of the disease obtained at the expense of
the patient, whose powers are  thereby  gradually diminished, 
97
An epilepsy which had been  suppressed during  several years
by issues, constantly re-appeared  more  violent  than before
whenever the exuditories were allowed to heal up, as attested
by Pechlin* and others.   But purgatives  are no more alloeo-
pathic in regard to psora, or issues in respect of epilepsy, than
the compounds of unknown ingredients  employed  till the
present time in ordinary practice are so in relation to the other
innumerable forms of disease.   These mixtures do  nothing
more than weaken the patient, and suspend the evil for a very
short space of time without being able to cure it, while  their
continued and repeated use,  as  it  frequently happens, adds a
new disease to the old one.

                * Obs. Phys. Med. lib. 2, obs. 30.

   §  10.  III. Or it sometimes occurs that the new disease, after
having acted for a considerable period upon the  system,  joins
itself finally to  the old dissimilar  one, presenting together a
complicated form of disease, but in such a manner that each of
them,  notwithstanding,  occupies a  particular region of the
economy, installing itself in those organs with which it sympa-
thises, and abandoning  the  others  to  the  diseases  that are
dissimilar.   Thus a venereal  affection may turn to one that is
psoric, and vice versa.   These  two diseases being dissimilar, they
are incapable of annihilating  or  curing each  other.  Venereal
symptoms are effaced and suspended, in the first instance, as
soon as a psoric eruption commences; but, in the progress of
time, the venereal affection being  at least quite as powerful as
the psoric, the two unite together1—that is to say, each seizes
merely upon those parts of the organism that are appropriate to
it individually, by which the patient is rendered worse, and the
cure more difficult than before.  In a case where two  con-
tagious acute diseases  meet  together, bearing no analogy to
each  other,  (such  as,  for example, the small-pox  and  the
measles,) one of them ordinarily suspends  the other, as before
stated. However, there have been some extraordinary instances
in  violent epidemic  diseases, where  two  dissimilar acute
maladies have simultaneously attacked  the  body of the same
individual, and become, so to express it, complicated for a short
time.   In an epidemic where the small-pox and the  measles
       13 
98
reigned together, there  were  about three hundred  cases  in
which one of these maladies suspended the other, and in which
the measles  did not break forth until  twenty days  after the
eruption of the small-pox, and the latter till from seventeen to
eighteen days after that of the  measles—that is to say, until
after the first disease had run  its entire course; but there was
a single instance in  which  P.  Russell2 met with these two
dissimilar  maladies   simultaneously in  the  same  patient.
Rainey3 saw the small-pox and the measles together  in two
little girls; and J.  Maurice4 remarks that  he never met with
more than two instances of this kind in the whole course of his
practice.  Similar examples may be found in Ettmuller,5 and a
few  other writers.   Zencker6 saw the cow-pock  pursue  its
course  in a  regular  manner  conjointly with  measles and
purpura;  and  Jenner likewise observed it pursue its course
tranquilly in the  midst of  a  mercurial  treatment  directed
against the venereal disease.

  i The cures which I performed of these kinds of complicated diseases,
together with the accurate  experiments which I have made, have con-
vinced me  that they do not  arise from an amalgamation of two diseases ;
but that the latter exist separately in the organism, each occupying the
parts that are most in harmony with it.  In short, the cure is effected in
a very complete manner by  administering alternately, and at the proper
time, mercurials and  antipsoiics, each according to its approriate dose
and preparation.
  2 Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Med. and Chir.
Knowledge, vol. ii.
  s Med. Comment, of Edinb. iii. p. 480.
  4 Med. and Phys. Journal, 1805.
  5 Opera,  ii. p. i. cap. 10.            6 In Hufeland's Journal, xvii.

   §  41.  The complication or co-existence of several diseases
in the same patient, resulting from a long use of medicines that
were not homoeopathic, is far more frequent than  those to
which nature herself has given birth.  The continued applica-
tion  of inappropriate medicines  finishes by adding to the
natural disease which it is intended to cure, such fresh morbid
symptoms as those remedies are capable of exciting according
to the nature of their  special properties.  These symptoms not
being capable of curing by analogous  counter irritation, (that
is to say, homoeopathically,) a chronic  disease to which they 
99
bear no similitude, gradually associate themselves to the latter,
and thus add a new factitious disease to the old one, so that the
patient becomes considerably worse, and far more difficult to
cure.   There are  many observations and cases cited in  the
medical  journals   and treatises that support this  assertion.
One proof of it is  also to be met with in the frequent cases of
the venereal  chancrous disease, especially when  complicated
with  psora,  and  even  with  gonorrhea   sycotica, which,
far from  being cured by considerable and repeated doses of
inappropriate mercurial preparations, station  themselves in the
organism alongside of the  chronic mercurial disease which
developes  itself gradually,*  and form  together a monstrous
complication  generally  designated  by  the  name of masked
syphilis  (pseudo-syphilis), a state  of  disease which,  if  not
absolutely incurable, cannot at least but with  the greatest
difficulty be changed to that  of health.

  * For besides the morbid symptoms analogous to those of the venereal
disease, which would be capable of curing the same homoeopathically,
mercury produces a crowd of others which bear no resemblance what-
ever to those of syphilis, and which, when administered in large doses,
especially where there is a complication  with psora, as is frequently the
case, engenders fresh evils, and commits  terrible ravages on the body.

   § 42.   Nature, as  I have  before said, sometimes permits the
coincidence of two and even three spontaneous diseases in  one
and the same body ;  but it must be observed, that this compli-
cation never takes place but  in diseases that are dissimilar,  and
which, according  to  the eternal laws of nature, cannot  anni-
hilate or  cure each  other  reciprocally.  Apparently this is
executed  in  such  a manner that  the two  or three diseases
divide, if we  may  so express it, the organism between them,
and each  takes possession of  the parts that are best suited to it
individually; a division which, in consequence  of the  want
of similitude between them, can very well take place without
doing injury to the unity of the vital principle.

   § 43.   But the result is very different when two diseases that
are similar meet together  in the  organism—that is to say, when
an analogous but more powerful disease  joins itself to the pre-
existing malady.   It  is true  that we here see how  a cure is 
100
performed according to nature, and how man is to proceed  in
effecting the same object.

  § 44.  Two  diseases that resemble  each other  closely can
neither repel (as in the first of the three preceding hypotheses,
I.), nor suspend each other (as in the second, II.), so that the old
one re-appears after the cessation of the new one ; nor, finally,
(as in the third, III.), can they exist beside each other in the
same organism, and form a double or complicated disease.

  § 45.  No !  Two diseases  that  differ  greatly  in  their
species,1  but which bear a strong resemblance in their develop-
ment and  effects—that  is  to  say,  in the symptoms which
they produce, always mutually destroy each  other when they
meet together  in the  system.  The stronger  annihilates  the
weaker ; nor is it difficult to conceive how this is performed.
Two dissimilar diseases may co-exist in the body, because their
dissimilitude would allow  of their   occupying two distinct
regions.  But, in the present case, the stronger disease which
makes its appearance, exercises  an influence  upon  the same
parts as the old one, and even throws itself, in preference, upon
those which have till now been attacked by  the latter, so that
the old disease finding no other organ to act upon, is necessarily
extinguished.2  Or to express it in other terms, as soon as the
vital powers, which have till then been deranged by a morbific
cause, are attacked  with greater  energy by a new power very
analogous  to the former, but  more  intense, they no longer
receive any impression but from the latter, while the preceding
one, reduced to a state of mere dynamic power without matter,
must cease to exist.

  1 See the note attached to § 26.
  2 In the same way that the light of  a lamp is rapidly effaced from  the
retina by  a sunbeam which strikes the eye with greater force.

  §  46.  Many examples might be adduced where nature  has
cured  diseases  homoeopathically by  other   diseases which
excited  similar symptoms.   But if precise  and  indisputable
facts alone be required,  it will  be  necessary  to  confine our-
selves to the few diseases which arise from some permanent 
101
miasm, and constantly preserve their identity, for which reason
they ought to receive a distinct appellation.
  The foremost that presents itself among  these affections is
the small-pox, so famous for  the violence and number of its
symptoms, and which has cured  a  multitude of diseases that
were characterised by symptoms similar to its own.
  Violent ophthalmia,  extending even  to the loss of sight, is
one  of the  most  ordinary  occurrences in  the small-pox;
whereas  Dezoteux1 and  Leroy2 have  each  reported cases of
chronic ophthalmia which were cured in a perfect and perma-
nent manner by  inoculation.
   A case  of blindness of two years' standing  brought on by the
metastasis of tinea, was, according to Klein,3 perfectly cured by
the small-pox.  How often  has the  small-pox  cured deafness
and oppressed respiration ?   J. F. Closs4 has seen it cure both
these  affections  when   it  had reached  its highest state of
intensity.
   Considerable  enlargement  of the  testicle  is  a  frequent
symptom  in small-pox, and, according  to Klein,5 it has been
known to cure homoeopathically a large hard  swelling of  the
left testicle, the  consequence of a contusion.  Another observer6
has  seen it cure a similar swelling of the testicle.
   Dysentery  is  one  of the  bad symptoms which occur in
small-pox—for this reason it cures the former disease homoeo-
pathically, as  in a case reported by F. Wendt.7
   The small-pox which comes on after vaccination destroys
the latter immediately, and does not permit  it to arrive at per-
fection, both because it is  more powerful than the  cow-pock,
and bears a  close resemblance to it.  By  the same reason,
when the  cow-pock approaches to  its term  of maturity, it
diminishes  and softens,  in a  very great degree, the small-pox
which has just  broken out, and causes it to assume a milder
form, as witnessed by Muhry8 and many others.
   The cow-pock,  in addition to the  vesicles which protect
from small-pox, excites  also  a  general  cutaneous  eruption of
 another  kind.   This  exanthema  consists of sharp-pointed
 pimples,  usually small,  seldom  large  and  suppurating, dry,
 resting upon  a  small red areola, frequently interspersed with
 small round spots of a red colour, and sometimes attended with
 severe itching.   In many children it.  precedes by several days 
102
the appearance of the red areola of the cow-pock.   But most
often  it manifests  itself afterwards, and  disappears in a few
days,  leaving small hard red spots on the skin.  It is by reason
of this other exanthema, and the analogy which it bears to the
same,  that  the cow-pock,  the moment it takes, removes in a
permanent  manner those cutaneous eruptions which exist in
some  children, and which  are often troublesome and of long
standing.   This has been attested by numerous observers.9
  Vaccination, whose special symptom is a swelling of the arm,10
cured, after its eruption, the tumefaction  of an arm that was
half paralysed.11
  The vaccine fever, which takes place  at the  period of the
formation of the red areola, has, according to the information
of Hardege12 cured two cases of intermittent  fever homceo-
pathically;  which  confirms the remark formerly made  by  J.
Hunter,13 that two fevers  (or diseases that  are similar) can
never exist together in the body.t
  The measles and hooping cough resemble each other both in
regard to the fever and the character of the cough.   This was
the reason  that Bosquillon14 observed, during an epidemic of
measles and hooping-cough, that among the children who had
the former there were  many entirely free from the latter. All
of them would have been exempt from hooping-cough for ever
after,  and also beyond the reach of the contagion of measles, if
the hooping-cough was  not a disease that only  resembled the
measles partially—that is,  if it produced an  eruption  of the
skin analogous to  that of the latter ; thus the measles are
able to preserve  but a certain number of children homoeo-
pathically from the hooping-cough, nor can they do this for a
longer period than during the continuance of  the reigning
epidemic.
  But when  the measles come in contact with  a disease that
resembles them in  the principal  symptom, viz.  the eruption,
they can beyond  a doubt annihilate  and cure   it  homoeopa-
thically.  It was under such circumstances that  the eruption
of measles  cured  a chronic tetter15 in a  prompt, durable, and
perfect manner, as  observed by Kortum.16  A miliary eruption
that covered the neck, face, and  arms, during a period of six
years, attended with insupportable heat, and which returned at
every change of weather, was reduced to  a simple swelling of 
103
the skin on the appearance of measles ;  after the  cessation of
the  latter,  the  miliary  eruption  was  cured  and never re-
appeared.17

  i Traite de l'Inoculation, p. 189.
  2 Heilkunde  fur Mutter (Medical  Treatise for the use of Mothers),
p. 381.
  3 Interpres Clinicus, p. 293.
  4 Neue  Heilart der  Kinderpocken  (New  System  for the Cure of
Small-pox),  Ulm, 1769, p. 68. and Specim. Obs. No. 18.
  6 Loc. cit.                      6 Nov. Act. Nat. Cur. vol. i. obs. 22.
  7 Nachricht  von dem Krankeninstitut (Directions  of the  Medical
Board) at Erlangen, 1783.
  s In R. Willan on Vaccination.
  » Particularly Clavier, Hurel, and Desormeaux, in the Bulletin des Sc.
Med. de l'Eure, 1808.   Journal de Medecine continue,  xv. 206.
  10 Balhorn, in Hufeland's Journal, X. ii.
  11 Stevenson, in Duncan, Annals  of Med.   Lustr. ii.  vol. i. sect. 2.
No. 9.
  12 In Hufeland's Journal, xxiii.
  13 Ueber die venerische Krankheit, (on the Venereal  Disease),  p. 4.
  t In the former editions of the  Organon, I have cited cases  where
chronic diseases have been cured by psora,  which, according to the dis-
coveries I have made known in the first part of my Treatise on Chronic
Diseases, can only be partially regarded as homoeopathic cures.   The
great affections which were thus obliterated  (such as suffocating asthma
and phthisis  of many years' standing,) already owed their origin to some
psoric cause.  The  symptoms  of a  psoric  eruption of long standing,
which were completely developed in the system, and threatened the life
of the patient, were reduced  by the appearance  of a psoric eruption
caused by a new infection, to the simple form of primitive psora, by
which  means  the old disease, with  its  alarming  symptoms,  were
removed.  This return to the  primitive  form  cannot, therefore, be re-
garded as a homoeopathic cure of the old psora but in this sense, that the
new infection places the patient in a much more favourable way of being
subsequently cured of the entire psora by antipsoric medicines.
  14 Cullen's Elements of Pract. Med. part. ii. 1. 3, ch. 7.
  15 Or at least this symptom was removed.
  16 In Hufeland's Journal, XX. ii. p. 50.        17 Rau, loc. cit. p. 85.

  §  47.   No instructions  can be more simple and persuasive
than these, to direct  the  physician  in the choice  of the sub-
stances  (medicines)  which  are  capable  of exciting  artificial
diseases, in order that he may be enabled to cure in a prompt
and durable manner according to the course of nature.
  §  48.   All  the  preceding examples prove to us that neither 
104
the efforts of nature, nor the skill of the physician, have ever
been able to cure a disease by a dissimilar morbific power,
whatever  energy the latter  may  have possessed;  also, that a
cure is  not  to be  obtained but by a morbific power capable of
producing symptoms that are similar,  and,  at the  same time, a
little stronger.  The cause of this rests with the  eternal  and
irrevocable law of nature, which was hitherto not understood.

  § 49.   We should have met with a much greater number of
those truly  natural homoeopathic cures,  if, on the one hand,
observers had been more  attentive to the subject, and, on the
other, nature had at her  disposal more diseases capable of
effecting homoeopathic cures.

  § 50.   Even  nature  herself has  no other  homoeopathic
agents at her  command  than the miasmatic diseases which
always retain their identity,  such as  itch,  measles, and small-
pox.*  But  of these morbific powers, the  small-pox and  the
measles are  more dangerous and terrific  than the maladies
which they cure; and  the other, psora, demands itself, after
the performance of a cure, the application of a  remedy that is
capable  of annihilating it in its turn: both of these are  circum-
stances that render their use as homoeopathic remedies difficult,
uncertain, and dangerous.  And how few  are the diseases to
which man is subject, that would find their homoeopathic cure
in psora, measles, or small-pox!  Nature can, therefore, cure
but a very  limited number of diseases  with those hazardous
remedies.   Their use is attended with considerable danger to
the patient, because the  doses of these morbific agents cannot
be  varied according to circumstances, as in the  case  with
doses of medicine, and in curing an analogous disease of long
standing,  they  weigh down the patient  with the  dangerous
burden  of psora,  measles, and small-pox. Notwithstanding
this, we have many examples where their favourable junction
has produced the  most  perfect homoeopathic cures, which are
a living commentary upon the sole therapeutic law of nature—
cure with  medicines that are capable of exciting  symptoms ana-
logous to those of the disease itself.

  * And  the exanthematic miasm which is contained  in the cow-pock
lymph. 
105
  § 51.  These facts will more than  suffice to reveal to the
understandings of men  the  great  law which has just been
declared.  And  behold the advantage  which  man has  here
over rude  nature, whose acts are not guided by reflection!
How are the  homoeopathic morbific powers multiplied in the
various medicines which are spread over the creation, all of
which  are at his disposal, and may be brought  to the relief of
his  suffering  fellow-mortals  !  With  these,  he  can create
morbid symptoms as varied  as the countless natural  diseases
which  they are to cure.  With such precious resources at his
command, there can be  no necessity for those violent attacks
upon  the organism to extirpate  an old and  obstinate  disease,
and the transition from the state of suffering to that of durable
health  is effected in a gentle, imperceptible,  and often speedy
manner.

  § 52.  After such  evidence and examples, it  is impossible
for  any reasonable  physician to  persevere  in  the  ordinary
alloeopathic  treatment, or continue to  apply remedies whose
effects  have no direct or homoeopathic relation with the chronic
disease that is to be cured, and which attack  the body in the
parts that are least diseased,  by exciting evacuations, counter-
irritation, derivations, &c*  It is impossible that he can persist
in the  adoption of a method which consists in exciting, at the
expense of  the  powers  of the patient, the  appearance  of a
morbid state entirely different from the primitive affection, by
administering strong doses of mixtures which are for the  most
part composed of drugs whose effects  are unknown.  The use
of such mixtures can have no other result but  that which pro-
ceeds from  the  general law  of nature when  one  dissimilar
disease joins itself to another in the animal economy—that is
to say, the chronic affection, far from being cured, is, on the con-
trary,  always  aggravated.  Three  different  effects may  then
take place :—1st. If the  alloeopathic treatment, though of long
duration, be gentle,  the natural  disease remains unchanged,
and the patient will only have lost a portion  of his  strength,
because, as  we  have seen before,  the  disease which already
exists  in the  body will not permit a new dissimilar one that is
weaker  to  establish  itself  there  likewise.   2d. When the
        11 
106
economy is attacked  with violence by alloeopathic medicines,
the primitive disease  will yield for a time ; but it re-appears,
with at least the same degree of vigour as before, the moment
this treatment is interrupted,  because, as before stated, of two
concurrent  diseases,  the new  one,  which is the  stronger,
destroys and suspends for a time that which existed before it,
which is weaker and  dissimilar.   3d.  Finally, if large doses of
alloeopathic medicines be continued for  a length  of time, this
treatment only  adds  a new factitious disease without  ever
curing the  primitive one, and renders  the  cure still  more
difficult, because, as we have already seen, when two dissimilar
chronic affections of equal intensity meet together, one  takes
up  its station beside the other in the system, and  both are
simultaneously established.

  * See the introduction, " A View," etc., and my book—Die Alloeopa-
thie, ein Wort der Warnung an Kranke jeder Art.—Leipzig, bei Baum-
gartner.

  § 53.  These cures  are, as  we  see, performed solely by
means of homoeopathy, which  we have at length attained to,
by  consulting reason and  taking experience  for  our guide
(§ 7—25).   By this method alone can we cure disease in the
most  speedy, certain,  and permanent manner, because  it is
grounded upon an eternal and unerring law of nature.

  § 54.  I have before remarked (§ 43—49)  that there is no
true method but the  homeopathic ; because, of the only  three
modes of employing medicines in disease, this alone leads in a
direct  line to a mild, safe,  and durable cure, without either
injuring the patient or diminishing his strength.

  § 55.  The second mode of employing medicines in disease,
is that which I term the alleopathic, or heteropathic, which has
been  in  general use  till  the  present time.   Without  ever
regarding that which  is  really  diseased in the body, it attacks
those parts  which are sound, in order to draw off the malady
from another quarter, and direct it towards the latter.   I  have 
107
 already treated of this method in the Introduction, and therefore
 will not speak of it farther.

   §  56.   The  third and last mode of employing medicines in
 disease is the  antipathic,  enantiopathic,  or palliative.   By this
 method, physicians have, till the present time, succeeded in
 affording apparent  relief,  and gained the confidence of their
 patients by deluding them with a temporary suspension of their
 sufferings.  We will now show its inefficacy, and  to what
 extent it  is even injurious  in  diseases that run  their course
 rapidly.   In  fact, this  is  the  only feature, in the treatment
 employed by alloeopathists, that  has any direct  reference to the
 sufferings  occasioned  by the  natural  disease.  But in what
 does  this  reference consist?  In precisely that which ought
 most to  be avoided if we  would not  delude and mock  the
 patient.

   § 57.   An ordinary physician who proceeds upon the anti-
 pathic method, pays attention to one symptom only—that of
 which the patient complains  loudest,  and  neglects  all  the
 others, however numerous.  He prescribes against this symp-
 tom  a medicine that is known  to produce the very opposite
 effect;  for, according to  the axiom contraria  contrariis  laid
 down fifteen hundred years ago by the old schools of medicine,
 it is from  this remedy that he expects  the most speedy relief
 (palliative).  Accordingly,  he  administers  strong doses  of"1
 opium in  pains of every description,  because this substance
 rapidly benumbs  the  feeling.  He prescribes the same drug in
 diarrhoea, because in a short time it stops the peristaltic move-
 ment of the  intestinal  canal, and renders  it insensible.   He
administers it likewise  in cases of insomnolence, because it
produces a state of hebetude and stupor.  He employs purga- '
tives when the patient has for a long time been  tormented with
constipation.   He plunges a hand that has received a burn
 into  cold  water, because  its  icy quality appears suddenly  to
 remove the pain  as if by  enchantment.   When a patient com-
plains of a sense of cold and loss of vital heat, he places him in
a warm bath, whereby heat is immediately restored.  Any one
 complaining of habitual weakness, is  advised to  take wine,
which immediately re-animates  and appears to refresh him. 
108
Some other antipathies—that is  to say, medicines  opposed to
the  symptoms—are  likewise employed ;  but independent of
those I have just enumerated there  are  not many, because
ordinary physicians are  only acquainted with the peculiar and
primitive effects of a very small number of medicines.

   §  58.  I will pass over the defect (see the note to § 7) which
this  method  has in attaching itself to but one of the symptoms,
and  consequently but to a  small part of the whole, a circum-
stance from which nothing could evidently be expected for the
amelioration of the entire disease, which is the only thing the
patient aspires to.  I will now ask, if experience can show me
a single case where the application of these antipathic remedies
in chronic or  permanent diseases, and the short relief which
they have  procured, has  not been  followed  by  a  manifest
aggravation, not  only of the symptoms thus palliated in the
first instance, but what is more, of the entire disease 7  Every
one  who has paid attention to the subject will concur in saying,
that after this slight antipathic amendment which lasts only for
a short time, the  condition of  the  patient invariably becomes
worse, although the ordinary physician endeavours  to account
for this  too  palpable augmentation, by attributing it to the
malignity  of the  primitive  disease,  which,  according to his
account, only then began to manifest itself.*

  * However unaccustomed physicians may have been till the present
time to make  correct observations, it could not have escaped their
notice, that disease infallibly increases after the  use of palliatives.  A
striking example of this nature is found in J. H. Schulze, (Diss, qua
corporis humani momentanearum  alterationum specimina qucedam
expenduntur.  Halle, 1741, § 28). Something similar to this  is attested
by Willis (Pharm. rat. sec. 7. cap. i. p. 298) :—Opiata dolores atrocis-
simos plerumque sedant atque indolentiam.....procurant, eamque___
aliquamdiu et pro stato quodam tempore continuant, quo spatio elapso,
dolores mox  recrudescunt  et brevi  ad solitam ferociam  augentur.
And p. 295:—Exactis opii  viribus illico redeunt tormina, nee atroci-
tatem suam remittunt, nisi dum ab eodem pharmaco rursus incantan-
tur.   J. Hunter (in  his Treatise on the Venereal Disease, p. 13) says
that wine increases the energy of persons who are weak without bestow-
ing on them any real vigour; and that the vital powers sink afterwards
in the same proportion as they have been stimulated, so that the patient
gains nothing by it, but, on the contrary, loses the greater part of his
{strength. 
109
  § 59.  No severe symptom of a permanent disease lias ever
been treated by these  opposite remedies  and palliatives, where
the evil did not re-appear after a few hours, more aggravated
than before.   Thus,  to  cure  an habitual tendency  to  sleep
during the  day, coffee was  administered, the first effects of
which  are excitement and insomnolence ; but the moment that
its first action  was exhausted, the propensity to sleep returned
stronger  than  ever.   When a person was subject  to frequent
waking at night, without any  regard being paid to the  other
symptoms of the disease, opium was administered  at bed-time,
which, by virtue of its primitive action,  produces sleep, stupor,
and hebetude; but on the following night the evil only  became
still more aggravated in consequence.  Alike regardless of the
other symptoms, opium was administered in chronic diarrhoea,
because its primitive effect is to constipate  the  bowels;  but the
alvine  flux, after  having been  suspended   for   some  time,
re-appeared more  grievous than before.  Acute and frequent
pains of  all descriptions were momentarily calmed  beneath the
influence of opium, which blunts and benumbs the  feeling; but
they never failed to return with greater violence  than before,
or they were even sometimes replaced by another  disease of a
worse  description.  The ordinary physician knows no better
remedy for a cough of long standing, which becomes worse at
night,  than opium, whose first effects remove all kinds of
irritation ;  for  the first night it may very well happen  that the
patient experiences some relief, but  on  the succeeding nights
the cough  returns more  distressing than  ever;   and if the
physician persists  in combating it with  the same palliative by
gradually  increasing  the  dose, nocturnal  perspirations and
fever will then be added to  the previous complaint.  It has
been imagined, that tincture of cantharides,  which stimulates
the urinary passages, would remedy a weakness of  the bladder.
and the retention of urine which results from it; it may, indeed,
effect some forced emissions of urine, but in the end the bladder
is only rendered less irritable and less susceptible of contraction,
while paralysis of  the  bladder  is likely  to follow.   Physicians
have flattered  themselves that they could subdue an inveterate
tendency to constipation by purgatives administered in  large
doses,  which provoke  frequent and abundant alvine evacua-
tions ;  but  the secondary effect of this  treatment  is generally 
110
that of constipating the bowels in a still  greater degree.  An
ordinary physician prescribes  wine as a remedy  in  chronic
debility ; but it is only the primitive action of this agent that is
stimulating, and its definitive results are those of reducing the
powers still more.
  It has been imagined that bitters  and spices would warm and
strengthen the  cold and inactive stomach ;  but the secondary
effect of these heating palliatives is  to increase the inactivity of
the gastric viscera.  Warm baths have been prescribed in cases
of rigors and an habitual deficiency of the vital  heat; but on
coming out of the water the patients are still weaker, more
incapable  of receiving warmth, and more subject to rigors than
they were before.  Immersion in cold water instantly relieves
the pain  occasioned by a severe burn ; subsequently, however,
this  pain  is increased to an  insupportable degree, and the
inflammation extends to  the  neighbouring  parts.*  To cure
gravedo of long standing, sternutatories are  prescribed, which
excite the  pituitary secretion;  and it  has not  been perceived
that the final result of this method  was always that of aggra-
vating the evil which it was intended to cure.  Electricity and
galvanism, which  at  first exercise great influence upon the
muscular system, quickly restore activity to members that have
for  a long time been feeble  and  nearly paralysed;  but the
secondary effect is absolute annihilation of all muscular  irrita-
bility and entire paralysis.  It has been said that venesection is
a fit remedy to stop long continued  congestions of blood in the
head; but this mode is always succeeded by a still greater deter-
mination of blood to  the upper parts  of the body.  The sole
remedy that physicians in  ordinary  know to  apply in cases
where the moral  and physical powers are inactive and half
paralysed, which are predominant symptoms  in different kinds
of typhus, is valerian,  administered in strong doses, because this
plant is one of the most powerful excitants they are  acquainted
with; but it escaped their notice, that the excitement which vale-
rian produces is merely its primitive effect, and after the re-action
of the organism, the stupor and the incapability of motion—that
is to say, the paralysis of the body, and the debility of the  mind,
increase—they have not observed that the patients on  whom
they lavished doses of the  antipathic valerian, are precisely
those who have  suffered the greatest  mortality.  In short, the 
Ill
former schools of medicine have never  calculated how often
the secondary effects of antipathic medicines have tended to
increase the malady, or even bring on something that was still
worse, of which  experience has given us examples that  are
enough to inspire the soul with terror.

               * See the close of the Introduction.

  § 60.  When these  grievous consequences (which naturally
might have been expected from the use of antipathic remedies)
begin to manifest themselves,  the ordinary physician imagines
that he will  be delivered from his embarrassment if he adminis-
ters a stronger dose each time that the evil grows worse.  But
from  this also, there  results  nothing but  momentary  relief,
while from the necessity in which he sees himself of constantly
augmenting the dose of the palliative, it sometimes follows that
a still severer  malady declares itself—sometimes that life is
endangered, and even that the patient falls a sacrifice.  A
disease of long standing or of  inveteracy  has  never been cured
by such means.

  § 61.  If physicians had been capable of reflecting upon the sad
results of the application of antipathic remedies, they would long
ago have arrived at the great truth, that a path directly opposite
would lead them to a method of treatment by which they might cure
disease perfectly and permanently.   They would  then have
discovered, that if a medicinal effect, contrary to the symptoms
of the malady (antipathic treatment), only procures momentary
relief, at the  expiration  of which  the  evil constantly grows
worse; by the  same rule the inverse method—that is to say, the
homeopathic application of medicines, administered according to
the analogy existing between  the  symptoms  they excite and
those  of the  disease itself, substituting, at the same time, for the
enormous doses that were in use, the smallest  that could possi-
bly be  applied—must necessarily  bring about a perfect and
permanent cure.  But notwithstanding all these  arguments—
notwithstanding the positive fact, that  no physician ever per-
formed a permanent cure in chronic diseases but in proportion
as the prescriptions included some predominant homoeopathic
medicine—notwithstanding  another fact no  less  clear, that 
112
  nature never accomplished a speedy and perfect cure but by
  means of a similar disease which she added  to the old one
  (§ 46);  notwithstanding all this, physicians have, during  so
  many centuries,  never arrived at  a truth  on  which  alone
  depended the safety of the patient.

     § 62.  The source of all these pernicious results of palliative
  antipathic treatment,  and the salutary effects proceeding from
  the  reverse  method,  the  homoeopathic, will be  sufficiently
  explained in the following observations, which are drawn from
  experience, and a number of facts that have hitherto escaped
  the notice of every other physician,  although they were imme-
  diately before the view, perfectly evident in  their nature, and
  of the deepest importance to the medical  art.

     § 63.  Every agent that acts  upon the  human  economy,
  every medicine produces  more or less some notable change in
  the existing  state of  the  vital powers, or  creates a certain
  modification in the health of man for a period of shorter  or
  longer duration:  this  change is called the  primitive  effect.
  Although this is the joint effect of both a medicinal and a vital
  power, it belongs, notwithstanding,  more particularly  to  the
  former,  whose  action  is exercised upon the body.  But our
  vital powers tend always to oppose their energy to this influence
  or impression.  The  effect  that results  from this,  and which
  belongs to our  conservative vital powers and  their automatic
  force, bears the name of secondary effect or re-action.

     § 64.   So long as the primitive effects of artificial morbific
  agents (medicines)  continue their  influence  upon a healthy
  body, the vital power appears to play merely a passive part,  as
  if it were compelled to  undergo the impression of the medicine
  that  is acting  upon it from without.  But, subsequently, this
,  also  appears,  in  a manner, to rouse itself.   Then, if there
  exists any state directly contrary to the primitive effect,  (a) the
  vital power manifests  a tendency to  produce one (b) that is
  proportionate to its own energy, and  the degree of influence
  exercised  by the  morbid  or medicinal  agent; and if  there
  exists no state in nature that is directly contrary to  this primi-
  tive effect, the vital power then seeks to  gain the ascendency 
113
by destroying the change that has been operated upon it from
without (by the action of the medicine), for which it substitutes
its own natural state (re-action).

  § 65.  Examples of (a) are before  the  eyes of every  one.
A hand that has  been  bathed in hot  water has, at first,
a much  greater share  of heat  than  the  other that has  not
undergone the immersion (primitive effect); but shortly after it
is withdrawn from the  water, and well dried, it becomes  cold
again, and in the end much colder than that on the opposite
side (secondary effect).   The great degree of heat that accrues
from violent exercise (primitive effect), is followed by shivering
and cold (secondary effect).  A man who has overheated him-
self by drinking copiously of wine (primitive effect) finds, on
the next day, even the slightest current of  air too cold for him
(secondary effect).  An arm  that has  been  immersed for any
length of time in freezing water,  is at first much  paler and
colder than the other (primitive effect); but let it be withdrawn
from  the water, and  carefully dried, it will not  only become
warmer than the other, but even burning hot, red, and inflamed_
(secondary effect).   Strong coffee in the first instance stimulates
the faculties (primitive effect), but it leaves behind a sensation
of heaviness and drowsiness (secondary effect) which continues
a long time if we do not again have recourse to the same liquid
(palliative).    After exciting  somnolence,  or  rather  a deep
stupor, by the aid of opium (primitive effect), it is much more
difficult  to  fall  asleep  on the succeeding  night (secondary
effect).   Constipation  excited by opium (primitive effect) is
followed by diarrhoea  (secondary effect); and evacuations  pro-
duced by purgatives (primitive effect) are succeeded by costive-
ness   which  lasts several days (secondary effect).   It is thus
that  the vital power, in  its re-action, opposes to the primitive
effects of strong doses of medicine which operate powerfully on
the healthy state of the body, a condition that is directly oppo-
site, whenever it is able to do so.

  § 66.  But it may be readily conceived that the healthy state
will  make  no perceptible re-action in  an opposite sense, after
weak and homoeopathic doses of agents that modify and change
its vitality.  On due  attention, it is true that even small doses
       15 
114
 produce primitive effects that are perceptible;  but the re-action
 made by the living organism never exceeds the degree that is
 requisite for the re-establishment of health.

   § 67.   These incontrovertible and self-evident truths which
 nature and experience have laid before us, explain, on the one
 hand, why the  homoeopathic method  is  so  beneficial  in its
 results,  and prove, on the  other,  the absurdity of that which
 consists  in treating  diseases  by  antipathic  and  palliative
 remedies.*

   * It is  merely in urgent and dangerous cases, or in diseases that have
 just broken out in persons who were  previously in  health, such, for
 example, as in asphyxia, especially from lightning, suffocation, freezing,
 drowning, &c, that it is either admissible or  proper,  in the first instance
 at least, to re-animate the feeling and irritability by the  aid of palliatives,
 such as  slight electric shocks,  injections  of strong  coffee,  stimulating
 odours, gradual warmth, &c.**  As soon as physical life is re-animated,
 the action of the  organs that support it resumes its regular course, as is
 to be expected from a body that was in the full enjoyment of health pre-
 vious to  the accident. Under  this head are also included the antidotes
 to several poisons, such as alkalis against mineral acids, liver of sulphur
 against  metallic  poisons, coffee, camphor (and  ipecacuanha) against
 poison by opium,  &c.
   We must not imagine  that a  homoeopathic medicine has been badly
 selected  in  a case of disease, because a few of the symptoms of this
 remedy correspond antipathically with some morbid symptoms of minor
 or less importance.   Provided the other symptoms of the disease, those
 which are the strongest and the  most developed, and finally those which
 characterise it, find in the remedy similar symptoms which cover, extin-
 guish, and destroy them, the small number of antipathic symptoms that
 are visible  disappear of themselves after the remedy has expended its
action, without retarding the recovery in the slightest degree.
  ** And  yet the new mongrel sect appeal to these remarks, though  in vain, in
 order to find a pretext every  where  for such exceptions to the general rule, and
 very  conveniently to  introduce their alloeopathic  palliatives, accompanied  with
 other mischief of a like character, merely to spare themselves the trouble of search-
 ing for suitable homoeopathic remedies for every case of disease,—one might say,
 to save themselves the trouble of being homoeopathic physicians, though they wish
 to be  considered such. But  their deeds will follow them—they are of little
 moment.

   §  68.   We find, it  is  true, in homoeopathic  cures, that the
 very minute  doses of  medicine  (§  275—287)  which  they
 require  to subdue  and  destroy natural diseases by analogy to 
115
the symptoms produced by the latter, leave  in the organism a
slight medicinal disease which outlives  the  primitive affection.
But the extreme minuteness of the dose renders  this disease so
slight and susceptible of dissipating itself,  that the organism
has no  need to oppose to it  any greater re-action than that
which is  requisite  to raise  the existing state to the habitual
degree of health—that is  to say, to  establish the latter.   And
all the symptoms of the primitive disease being now extinct, a  ,
very slight effort will suffice to accomplish this (§ 65. 6.)

  § 69.  But precisely  the  reverse of this  takes place in the
antipathic  or palliative  method.   The  medicinal  symptom
which the physician opposes to the  morbid symptom (such as,
for example,  stupefaction, which constitutes the primitive effect
of opium, opposed to an acute pain,) is not wholly foreign and
alloeopathic to this latter.  There is an evident affinity between
the two symptoms,  but it is inverse.  The morbid symptom is
to be annihilated here by a medicinal symptom opposed to it.
This  cannot possibly be accomplished.  It is true the  anti-
pathic remedy  acts  precisely  on the  diseased  part of  the
organism, just as certain  as the homoeopathic ; but it confines
itself to covering,  in a  certain degree,  the  natural morbid
symptom, and  rendering  it  insensible for a certain length of
time.   During the first moments of the action of the palliative,
the organism undergoes no disagreeable  sensation, neither on
the part of the morbid symptom, nor on that of  the  medicinal
one, which appear to be reciprocally annihilated and neutralised,
as it were, in a dynamic  manner.  This, for example, is what
takes place  in regard to pain  and the stupifying powers of
opium, for, during the first moments, the organism feels as if it
were in health, alike free from the  painful sensation and the
stupefaction.   But as, the medicinal  symptom that is opposed
cannot occupy in the organism  the place of the pre-existing
disease, (as is the case in the homoeopathic method, where the
remedy excites an  artificial disease  similar to the natural one,
but merely stronger,) the vital power consequently not  being
affected,  by the remedy employed,  with  a  disease similar  to
that  which had previously  tormented  it, the latter does not
become extinguished.  The  new disease, it is true, keeps the
organism  insensible, during the  first moments, by a kind  of 
116
dynamic neutralisation,1 if we may so  express it, but  it soon
dies away of itself, like all medicinal affections; and then it not
only leaves the malady in  its former state, but  still more (as
palliatives  can never be  administered  but  in large doses to
afford apparent relief) it compels the organism to produce a state
contrary to that excited by the palliative medicine, and creates
an effect opposite to that of  the  remedy—that is to say, gives
birth to  a condition  analogous to the natural disease which is
not yet destroyed.   This addition, then, which proceeds from
the  organism itself, (the re-action against the  palliative), does
not  fail to increase the intensity and severity of the disease.2
Thus  the  morbid  symptom (this single  part  of the  disease)
becomes  worse the moment the effect of the palliative ceases, and
that, too, in a degree proportionate  to the  extent of the  dose of the
palliative.   And,  to  continue  with the  same  example,  the
greater the quantity of the opium administered to suspend the
pain, in  the same  degree  does  the  pain increase beyond its
primitive intensity when the opium has ceased to act.3

   1 Contrary or opposite sensations in  the living economy of man cannot
be permanently  neutralised like  substances of opposite qualities in the
laboratory of the chemist, where we may see, for example, sulphuric acid
and potash form, by their union, a substance that is entirely different, a
neutral salt that is no longer acid  or alkali, and which not even fire will
decompose.   Combinations like  these, producing something  that is
neutral and  durable,  can never take  place in the organs of sensation
with  regard  to  impressions of  an opposite nature.   There is, indeed,
some appearance of neutralisation or of reciprocal destruction, but this
phenomenon is  of short duration.   The tears of the mourner may cease
for a moment when there is some merry spectacle before his eyes, but
soon the mirth is forgotten, and the tears begin to flow again more freely
than ever.
   2 However intelligible this  proposition  may  be, it has nevertheless
been misinterpreted and an objection  made to it, that a palliative would
be just as well able to cure by its consecutive effect, which resembles the
existing disease, as a homoeopathic remedy by its primitive effect.  But
in raising this obstacle, it has never been  considered that the consecutive
effect is by no means a product of the remedy, that it always arises from
the re-action exercised by  the vital powers of the organism, and  that
consequently this re-action of the  vital powers, by reason of the applica-
tion of a palliative, is a state  similar to the symptom of the disease
which this remedy failed  to annihilate, and which consequently  was
aggravated by the re-action of the vital power against the palliative.
   3 As in a dungeon where the prisoner scarce distinguishes the objects 
117
that are immediately before him, the flame of alcohol spreads around a
consolatory light;  but when the flame is extinguished, the obscurity is
then greater in the same proportion as the flame was brilliant, and now
the darkness that  envelops him is still more impenetrable, and he has
greater difficulty than before in distinguishing the objects around him.

  § 70. From all  that has been  here stated,  the  following
truths must be admitted :—
  1st. There  is nothing for the physician to cure in disease
but the sufferings  of the patient;  and the changes in his state
of health which are perceptible to the senses—that is to say,
the totality or mass of symptoms by  which the disease points
out the remedy it stands in need of; every  internal  cause that
could be attributed to it, every occult  character that man might
be tempted to bestow, are nothing  more  than so  many idle
dreams and vain imaginings.
  2d.  That state of the organism which we call disease, cannot
be converted  into  health but by the aid of another affection of
the organism, excited by means  of  medicines.   The  experi-
ments made upon  healthy individuals are the best and purest
means that could be adopted to  discover this virtue.
  3d.  According to every known fact, it is impossible to cure
a natural disease by the aid of  medicines  which  have  the
faculty of producing a dissimilar artificial state or symptom in
healthy persons.  Therefore the alloeopathic method can never
effect a real  cure.  Even  nature  never  performs  a cure, or
annihilates  one disease by adding to  it another that is dis-
similar, be the intensity of the latter ever so great.
  4th. Every fact serves to prove, that a medicine  capable of
exciting in healthy persons a morbid symptom opposite to the
disease that  is to  be cured,  never effects any other  than
momentary relief  in  disease of long  standing, without  curing
it, and suffers it  to  re-appear, after a certain interval, more
aggravated than ever.  The antipathic and purely palliative
method is, therefore, wholly opposed  to the object that is to be
attained, where the disease is  an  important one, and of long
standing:.
  5th.  The third method, the only one to which we can still
have recourse (the homoeopathic),  which  employs against the
totality of the symptoms of a natural disease, a medicine that is
capable of exciting in healthy  persons symptoms that closely 
118
resemble those of the disease itself, is the only one that is really
salutary, and which always annihilates  disease, or the purely
dynamic aberrations of the vital powers, in an easy, prompt,
and perfect manner.  In  this respect,  nature herself furnishes
the example when, by adding to an existing  disease a new one
that resembles it, she cures it promptly and effectually.

   § 71.  As it is no longer doubted that the diseases of man-
kind  consist merely of  groups of certain  symptoms  which
cannot  be destroyed but by  the  aid of medicines, and the
inherent faculty which  those substances possess  of exciting
morbid  symptoms similar to those of the natural  disease, the
points to be considered in the  mode of treatment are the three
following:—
   1st. By what means is the  physician to arrive at the neces-
sary information relative to a disease, in order to be able  to
undertake the cure ?
   2d. How is he to discover the morbific powers of medicines—
that is  to say, of the instruments destined to cure natural
diseases 1
   3d. What  is  the best mode of applying   these  artificial
morbific powers (medicines)  in the cure of disease?

   § 72.  Relative to the first point, it will be necessary for us
to enter here into  some general  considerations.  The diseases
of mankind resolve themselves into two classes.  The first are
rapid operations of the vital power departed from its natural
condition, which terminate in a shorter or longer period of time,
but are always of moderate duration.   These are  called acute
diseases.  The others, which are less  distinct and often  almost
imperceptible on their first appearance, seize upon the organism,
each  according to his  own peculiar manner, and remove it by
degrees so far from the state of health  that the  automatic vital
energy  which is destined to  support the latter, and which is
called vital power, cannot resist but in a useless and imperfect
manner ; and not being potent enough to extinguish them her-
self, she is compelled to  allow them to grow until, in the end,
they  destroy  the organism.  The latter are  known by the
appellation of chronic diseases, and are produced by infection
from  a chronic miasm. 
119
  § 73.  As to acute diseases, they may be classed  under two
distinct heads.   The first attack single individuals, and arise
from some pernicious cause to which they have been exposed.
Immoderate excess in either eating or drinking, a want of neces-
sary aliment, violent impressions of physical agents, cold, heat,
fatigue, (fee., or mental excitement, are the most frequent causes.
But for the most part they depend upon the occasional aggra-
vation of a latent psoric affection, which  returns to its former
sleep  and insensibility when the acute  affection is not  too
violent, or when it has been cured in a prompt manner.  The
others attack a plurality of individuals at once, and develope
themselves here and there (sporadically) beneath the sway of
meteoric and telluric influence, of whose action but few persons
are at the  moment  susceptible.  Nearly  approaching to these
are those which attack many  individuals at  the same time,
arising from similar causes, and exhibiting symptoms that are
analogous (epidemics);  and  usually  become contagious when
they act upon close and  compact masses of  human beings.
These maladies or fevers1 are each of a distinct  nature, and the
individual cases which  manifest  themselves being- all of  the
same origin, they invariably  place the  patients  every where in
one identical  morbid state, but which, if abandoned to them-
selves, terminate in a very short space of  time, either by a cure
or death.  War, inundations, and famine, frequently  give rise
to these diseases,  but they may likewise  result from  acute
miasms, which always re-appear  beneath the  same  form, for
which reason they  are designated by particular names ;  some
of which attack man but once during life,  such as the small-
pox, measles, hooping-cough, the scarlet2 fever of Sydenham,
mumps, (fee, and others which may seize him repeatedly, such
as the  plague, yellow-fever, Asiatic cholera, &c.
  1 The homoeopathic physician, who does not share  the prejudices of
the ordinary schools of medicine—that is to say, who does not, like them,
fix the number of those fevers to  a certain few,  forbidding nature to pro-
duce any others, nor affixes particular names to them in order that  he
may follow this or that mode of treatment—he does  not acknowledge
the appellations of jail fever, bilious fever,  typhus, putrid fever, pituitous
fever, but cures all these diseases individually by a treatment suited to
the symptoms they present.
  2 Subsequent to the year 1801, a puiple miliary fever came from the
west of Europe, which physicians  have  confounded with  scarlatina, 
120
although  the signs of  these two affections are entirely different, and
aconite is the curative  and preservative remedy of the first, and bella-
donna of  the second, while the  former always assumes the epidemic
character, and the latter is mostly sporadic.  Of late years, both these
two affections appear to have been combined into a particular species of
eruptive fever, against which neither of these two remedies were found
perfecdy  homoeopathic.

   § 74.  Under the class of  chronic  diseases, we have  unfor-
tunately to  reckon  those  numerous  factitious  maladies  of
universal  propagation,  arising  from  the long  continued
administration,  by the  alloeopathists, of violent  heroic   medi-
cines in  large and increasing doses, from the abuse of calomel,
corrosive sublimate,  mercurial  ointments,  nitrate of  silver,
iodine and its  ointment, opium, valerian, bark  and  quinine,
digitalis  purpurea, hydrocyanic acid,  sulphur and sulphuric
acid,  long continued evacuants, venesection, leeches, setons,
issues, &c, by  which  the  vital  power  is either unmercifully
weakened, or, if it be not indeed exhausted, gradually becomes
so abnormally altered, (in different manners, according  to the
particular  medicine administered,) that, in order to support life
against such  hostile and destructive assaults,  it must  effect
changes  in the  organisation,  and either  deprive this or the
other part of its sensibility or irritability,  or exalt  these pro-
perties to  excess, produce dilatation  or  contraction, relaxation
or induration* of parts,  or  else  totally destroy them, and here
and  there  induce organic changes, both internally and  exter-
nally, (maim, as it were, the interior and exterior of the body,)
in order  to protect the organisation against the entire destruc-
tion  of life,  from the reiterated assaults of such hostile and
destructive influences.

  * When, at length, the patient sinks, his physician who had prescribed
such a course of treatment, takes  care, on a post mortem examination, to
exhibit to the disconsolate relatives, these internal organic derangements
(which are due to his own unskilfulness) as the  original  and  incurable
complaint.

   § 75.  The  most distressing and unmanageable  chronic
maladies affecting the  human system,  are  those  which  have
been superinduced by the unskilful treatment of the alloeopa-
thists, (in modern times  most injurious.) and I  regret to say. 
121
that  when  they have attained a considerable height, it would
seem as if no  remedy could be discovered or devised for their
cure.

  § 76.  The Dispenser of all  good has granted  us aid, by
means of homoeopathy, for the removal of natural diseases only;
but those which have  been superinduced  by a false art—those
in which the human organism has been maltreated and crippled,
both internally and  externally, by means of pernicious medi-
cation, the vital power itself, provided, indeed, if it be not already
too much enfeebled  by such assaults, and can employ, unin-
terruptedly, whole years to the serious process, the vital  power
must remove  those  factitious diseases, (assisted by appropriate
aid directed against  a chronic miasm, which probably still lies
concealed within). An art of healing, intended for re-establish-
ing to  their normal condition those countless morbid changes
of the body, which  are often induced by  the mischievous arts
of alloeopathy, does not, nor cannot exist.

  §  77.  The name  chronic is very improperly applied to those
diseases which attack persons who are constantly exposed to
baleful influences from which they might  have  screened them-
selves—persons who constantly make use  of aliments or drink
that are hurtful to the system—who commit  excesses that are
injurious to health—who  are every moment in  want of the
articles necessary  to support life—who inhabit unwholesome
countries, and, above all,  marshy  places—who live in cellars
and  other confined  dwellings—who are  deprived of  air  and
exercise—who are  exhausted by  immoderate labour of the
mind  or body—who are consumed by perpetual ennui, (fee.
These diseases, or rather these privations of health, brought on
by individuals, disappear of themselves by a mere change of
regimen, provided there is no chronic  miasm in the body, but
they cannot be called chronic diseases.

   §  78.  The true natural chronic diseases are those which are
produced by a chronic miasm, making continual progress in the
body when no specific  curative remedy is opposed to them, and -
which, notwithstanding all imaginable care both with regard to
the regimen of the body and mind, never  cease tormenting the
        16 
                            122

patient with an  accumulation of miseries that  endure till  the
latest period of  his  existence.  These are the  greatest and
most frequent scourges of the human species,  since the most
robust  constitution, the best regulated life, and the greatest
energy of the vital powers, are insufficient to extinguish them.

  § 79.  Hitherto, syphilis only was in some  measure known
as one  of  these  chronic  miasmatic  diseases, which,  being
uncured, continued to the end of life.   Sycosis, which likewise
cannot be subdued by the vital powers alone, has never been
regarded as a distinct species of chronic disease depending on
an internal miasm ; and it was supposed to be  cured when the
excrescences on the skin were destroyed, while no attention
was paid to the source which still continued to  exist.

  § 80.  But  a  chronic  miasm that  is incomparably greater
and  far more important than either of the two last named, is
that  of psora.   The two others disclose the  specific internal
affection whence they emanate—the one by chancres, and the
other by excrescences in the form of a cauliflower.  It  is not
until the whole of the organism is infected, that psora declares
its huge  internal chronic  miasm by a  cutaneous eruption
(sometimes consisting only  in a few  pimples) that is wholly
peculiar to  it, accompanied by insupportable  tickling,  volup-
tuous itching, and a specific odour.   This  psora is the sole
true  and fundamental cause  that produces all the other count-
less  forms of disease* which,  under the names  of nervous
debility, hysteria, hemicrania, hypochondriasis,  insanity, melan-
choly,  idiocy,  madness, epilepsy,  and  spasms  of all  kinds,
softening of the  bones, or rickets, scoliasis and  cyphosis, caries,
cancer, fungus hcematodes, pseudomorphae of all  kinds, gravel,
gout, haemorrhoids, jaundice and cyanosis, dropsy, amenorrhea,
gastrorrhagia, epistaxis,  hemoptysis,  hematuria,  metrorrhagia,
asthma and phthisis ulcerosa, impotency and sterility, deafness,
cataract and amaurosis, paralysis, loss of sense, pains of every
kind,  &c,  appear  in  our pathology  as so  many peculiar,
distinct, and independent diseases.
  * It has cost me twelve years of  study and research  to trace out the
source of this incredible number of chronic affections—to discover this
great truth which remained  concealed  from  all my predecessors and 
123
cotemporaries—to establish the basis of its demonstration, and find out,
at the same time, the principal antipsoric remedies that were fit to com-
bat this hydra in all its different forms.  My observations on this subject
have been given to the world in the Treatise on Chronic Diseases
which  I published in the year 1828-30, iv. vols.  Dresden, by Arnold.
(Second edition.   1835.)
  Until I  had  examined the depths  of  this  important matter, it was
impossible for me to teach the mode of subduing all chronic diseases but
as isolated and individual affections by the medicinal substances that
were till then known according to their effects upon healthy persons; so
that the followers  of my  method treated each  case of chronic disease
separately  as a distinct group of symptoms, which, however, did not pre-
vent their cure to such an extent that suffering humanity had good  cause
to rejoice at the newly discovered system of medicine.  But how  much
more satisfactory must it  be, now that remedies have been  discovered
which  are still more homoeopathic for the  cure of chronic diseases that
owe their origin to psora ! from among which the physician, who is truly
skilled  in his art, will select only such whose medicinal symptoms cor-
respond best with  those of the chronic disease which  it is intended to
cure.

   § 81.   The  progress of  this  ancient  miasm through the
organisms of millions of individuals in the course of some  hun-
dreds  of generations, and the extraordinary degree of develop-
ment which it has by these  means  acquired, will explain, to a
certain extent,  why it is able at present to make its appearance
beneath so many different forms, especially if  we contemplate
the multiplicity of circumstances1 that usually contribute to the
manifestation  of  this  great  diversity of  chronic  affections,
(secondary symptoms of psora), besides  the infinite variety of
their individual  constitution.   It is, therefore,  not  surprising
that such different organisms, penetrated  by the psoric miasm,
and exposed  to  so  many  hurtful  influences,  external   and
internal, which  often act  upon  them in a permanent  manner,
should also present such  an incalculable number of diseases,
changes,  and sufferings, as those which have,  till the  present
time,  been  cited  by  the  old pathology2  as  so many  distinct
diseases, describing them by a number of particular names.

  1 Some of these causes, which, in modifying the manifestation of psora,
give to it  the form of a chronic disease, evidently  depend, in a certain
degree, either on climate and the natural situation of the dwelling,  or on
the diversities of the physical and moral education of  youth, which has,
in some instances,  been either  neglected or  too long delayed, and in 
124
others carried to excess, or on the abuse of it in respect  to  regimen,
passions, morals, customs, and habits.
   2 How many are found among them whose names bear more  significa-
tions than one, and by each of which very different diseases are desig-
nated, that have  no connection with each other but by a single symptom 1
Such as ague, yellow jaundice,  dropsy, phthisis, leucorrhaea, haemorr-
hoids, rheumatism,  apoplexy,  spasms,  hysteria,  hypochondriasis,
melancholy, insanity, angina, paralysis,  &c, (tJ^ in  this country,
dyspepsia, liver  complaint, disease of the spine, and other fashionable
terms,)  which are represented as fixed diseases that always preserve
their identity, and which, by reason of the  name  they bear, are always
treated upon the same plan.  How can we justify the identity of medical
treatment by the  adoption of a  name?  And if  the treatment is not
always to be the same, why make use of an  identical name, which also
supposes a coincidence in the manner of being attacked by  medicinal
agents?   Nihil  sane in artem  medicam pestiferam  magis unquam
irrepsit  malum  quam  generalia qucedam  nomina  morbis  imponere
Usque aplare velle  generalem quandam  medicinam: it  is  thus that
Huxham, a physician as enlightened as he is admired for his candour,
has  expressed himself.  (Op. Phys.  Med. t. i.)  Fritze likewise com-
plains (Annalen,  i.  p. 80) that the  same  names have been given to
diseases that are essentially different.
   Even epidemic  diseases, which are probably propagated by a specific
miasm in each particular case of epidemy, receive names from  the exist-
ing medical school, as if they  were fixed diseases, already known and
always returning under the same form.  It is thus they speak of hospital
fever, jail fever, camp fever, bilious fever, nervous fever, mucous fever,
&c,  although each  epidemic of these erratic fevers  manifests  itself
beneath the aspect of a new  disease  that never existed before, varying
considerably both in  its course and in the most characteristic symptoms,
and also in its whole department. Each of them differs so widely from
all the anterior epidemics, whatever names they bear, that it is overturn-
ing every principle in logic to give  to diseases so manifestly different
from  each other  one of those  names  that have been introduced into the
pathology, and then  to regulate  the  medical treatment according to a
name that has been so abused.  Sydenham alone discovered the truth of
this (Oper. cap.  2, de morb. epid. p. 43) ; for he insists upon the neces-
sity of never believing in the  identity of one epidemic disease with an-
other that had manifested itself before, or of treating it according to this
affinity, because  the  epidemics which exhibit themselves  successively
have all  differed from each  other.   Animum admiratione  percellit,
quam discolor et sui plane dissimilis morborum epidemicorum fades ;
que tarn aperta horum morborum diver sit as turn propriis ac sibi pecu-
liaribus symptomatis, turn etiam medendi ratione, quam hi ab Mis dis-
parem  sibi vindicant,  satis illucescit.  Ex quibus  constat morbos
epidemicos, utut externa quatantenus specie et  symptomatis aliquot
utrisque pariter convenire paullo incautioribus  videantur, re tamen 
125
ipsa, si bene adverteris animum alienee esse admodum indolis et dis-
tare ut cera lupinis.
  From all this, it is clear that  these useless names of diseases, which
are so much abused, ought to have no influence whatever upon the plan
of treatment adopted by a true physician who knows  that he is not to
judge of and treat diseases after  the nominal  resemblance of a symptom,
but according to the totality of the signs of the individual  state of each
patient; his duty is, therefore, to search scrupulously  for diseases, and
not to build his opinion upon gratuitous hypotheses.
  Should it, however, be thought sometimes necessary  to have names
for diseases in order to render  ourselves  intelligible  in a few words to
the ordinary classes when speaking of a patient, let none be made use of
but such  as are collective.   We ought to  say,  for example,  that the
patient has a species of chorea, a species of dropsy, a species  of nervous
fever, a species of ague, because there certainly do not  exist any diseases
that are permanent and  always  retaining  their identity, which deserve
these denominations or others that  are analogous.  It is thus we might
by  degrees dissipate the illusion  produced by  the  names given  to
diseases.

   § 82.   Although the discovery of this great source of chronic
affections has advanced  the science  of medicine  some steps
nearer to that of the nature  of  the greater number of diseases
that present themselves for cure, still the homoeopathic physi-
cian, at every  chronic disease (psoric) that he is called upon to
treat, ought not to be less careful  than  before in  seizing upon
the perceptible symptoms, and every  thing  that is connected
with them; for it is no more possible  in these diseases than  in
others to  obtain a  real cure without  particularising  each
individual case in a rigorous and absolute manner.   It  is only
necessary  to distinguish  whether  the  disease is  acute  or
chronic,  because,  in   the  first case,  the principal symptoms
develope themselves more rapidly, the image of the malady is
found in a much shorter time, and there are far  fewer  enquiries
to be made, because the greatest part of the signs are of them-
selves  more  evident to the  senses* than is  the  case in chronic
diseases of several years' standing, whose symptoms are ascer-
tained with greater difficulty.

  * According to this, the method I am about to point  out for the dis-
covery  of  the symptoms is  only suited in  a  partial degree to acute
diseases.

  § 83.   This  examination  of a particular case  of disease, 
126
with  the  intent of presenting it in its formal state and indi-
viduality, only  demands,  on the part of the physician,  an
unprejudiced mind, sound understanding, attention and fidelity
in observing and tracing the image of the disease.  I will con-
tent myself, in the present instance, with merely explaining the
general principles of the course that is to be pursued, leaving
it to the physician to select those which  are  applicable to each
particular case.

   § 84.  The patient details his sufferings ;  the  persons who
are about him relate what he has complained of, how he has
behaved  himself, and  all that they  have remarked  in him.
The physician sees, hears and observes,  with his  other senses,
whatever there is changed or extraordinary in the patient.  He
writes all this down in the very words which the latter, and  the
persons around  him, made use of.  He  permits them to con-
tinue speaking to  the  end without interruption,* except  where
they  wander  into  useless digressions, taking care to exhort
them, at the commencement, to speak slowly, that he may be
enabled to follow  them in  taking down  whatever he  deems
necessary.
  * Every interruption breaks the chain of ideas of the person who  speaks,
and things do not afterwards return to his memory  in the same shape he
would at first have described them.

   § 85.  At each new  circumstance related  by the  patient or
the persons present, the physician  commences another line, in
order that the symptoms may all be written down separately,
and stand one beneath  the other.  By this mode of proceeding,
he will  be enabled to  add to that which has, in  the first
instance, been related to him in a vague manner, any  thing he
may subsequently acquire from a more accurate knowledge of
the case.

   § 86.  When  the patient and those about him have  finished
all they had to say, the physician  then  asks for more precise
information with regard to each individual symptom,  and pro-
ceeds as follows :—He reads over all that  has been communi-
cated  to  him, and asks  at  each  particular  symptom,  for
example—At what epoch did this or that circumstance occur ? 
127
Was it previous to the use of the medicines which the patient
has taken till the present time, or while he was taking them, or
only a few days after he had discontinued their use ?  What
kind of pain, what particular sensation was it that was felt in
such or such a part of the  body ?   Which the  precise spot that
it  occupied?   Did the pain come on in separate  attacks at
intervals, or was it lasting  and  uninterrupted ?  How long did
it continue ?   At what hour of  the day or night, and in what
part of the body, was it most violent, or where  and when did it
cease entirely ?  What was the precise  nature of this or that
particular circumstance or symptom ?

   §  87.   Thus the  physician  causes all  the indications which
were given in the first instance  to be described to  him more
closely, without  ever  appearing, by his manner of putting the
question, to dictate the answer,* or place  the patient in  such  a
position  that he shall have nothing to reply but yes or no to his
question.  To act otherwise would only lead the person inter-
rogated to deny or affirm a thing that is false, or only half true,
or even wholly different from that which has  really occurred,
according as it may suit his convenience, or for the purpose of
gratifying the  physician.   An unfaithful  description  of the
disease would then result, and, consequently,  an inappropriate
choice of the curative remedy.
  * For instance, the physician ought  never to say—"Did not such or
such a thing take place in this  manner?"  By giving this  turn to his
questions, he puts a false reply into the mouth  of the patient, and draws
from him a wrong indication.

   §  88.   If in this spontaneous narrative no  mention is made
of several parts or  functions of the body, and of the state of
mind of the patient, the physician may then ask if there is not
something more to  be said respecting this or that  particular
part or  function, or  relative to  the  disposition and state of
mind,t  taking care, at the  same  time, to confine himself to
general  terms, in order that  the  person who  furnishes the
explanation may, thereby, be constrained to answer categori-
cally upon these various points.
   t For example—Has the patient had  an evacuation from his bowels ?
 How does he pass water—freely or otherwise ? How  does he rest by 
128
 day and by night ?  What is the state of mind and temper of the patient 1
 Is he thirsty ?  What kind of taste has he in the mouth?  What kinds of
 food and  drink are most agreeable to him, and which are those he dis-
 likes?  Do the  different articles taste as usual, or have they  another
 taste that is wholly different?  How does he feel after meals?  Have
 you any thing more to tell me relative to the head, belly, or limbs?

   § 89.   When the patient (for it is to him we are to refer, in
 preference,  for every thing that  relates  to the sensations he
 experiences, except in diseases  where concealment is observed)
 has thus personally given the necessary details to the physician,
 and furnished him with a tolerable image  of the malady, the
 latter is then at liberty to question him more  specifically  if he
 finds he  is not yet sufficiently informed on the subject.*

  * For example—How often have the bowels  been evacuated, and
 what was the nature of the  discharges ?  Did the  whitish discharges
 consist  of mucus or faeces ?  Were they painful or otherwise ?  What
 was the precise nature of these pains, and in what part were they felt?
 What did the patient throw up ?  Is the bad taste in the  mouth putrid,
 bitter, or acid, or what  kind of taste is it ?   Does he experience this
 taste before, during, or  after eating or  drinking ?  At what part of the
 day does he feel  it in particular?   What kind of taste was connected
 with the eructation ?  Is the urine turbid at first, or does it only become
 so after standing a while?  Of what colour was it at the time of emis-
 sion ?   What was the colour of the  sediment ?  Is there any peculiarity
 in the state of the patient when he sleeps ?  Does he sigh, moan, speak,
 or cry out ?  Does he  start in his sleep ?   Does he snore  in inspiration
 or expiration ?  Does  he lie on his back only, or on which side does he
 lay himself?   Does he cover himself up close, or does he throw off the
 bed covering ?  Does  he easily awake, or does he sleep  too soundly ?
 How does  he  feel on waking ?  How often does this or that symptom
 occur, and on what occasion?  Is it when the patient is sitting up, lying
 down, standing up, or when  he is  moving about ?   Does it come on
 merely when he has been fasting,  or at least early in the morning, or
 simply in the evening, or only after  meals, or if at other times, when 1
 When did the shivering  come  on ?   Was it merely a sensation of  cold,
 or was he  actually cold at the  time ?  In what part of the body did the
 patient feel cold ?  Was his skin warm  when he  complained of being
 cold ?   Did he experience a sensation of  cold without shivering ?  Did
 he feel heat, without the face being flushed ?  What parts of his  body
 were warm to the touch? Did the patient complain of heat without his
 skin being warm?  How long did the sensation of cold, or that of  heat,
 continue?   When  did the thirst come on?  During the  cold or heat?
 Or was  it before or after ? How intense was the thirst?  What did the
patient ask for to drink?  When did the perspiration come on ?  Was 
129
 it at the commencement or at the expiration of the heat ?  What space
 of time elapsed between the heat and  the perspiration?  Was it when
 sleeping or waking that it manifested itself?  Was  it strong or other-
 wise ?  Was the perspiration hot or cold ?  In what parts of the body
 did it break out ?  How did it smell ?  What did the patient complain
 of before or during the cold, during or after the heat, during or after the
 perspiration, &c?                     *

   §  90.  All  the  answers  being  committed  to writing, the
 physician then  notes  down what he  himself observes  in the
 patient,* and endeavours to ascertain if that which he observes
 existed or not when the  latter was in health.
                                                       >
  * For example—How he  behaved during the time of the visit? Was
 he irritable,  peevish,  quarrelsome,  hasty, grieved, anxious, despairing,
 sad, calm, or resigned?  Did he appear overcome with sleep, or lost in
 reverie ?  Was he hoarse ?   Did he speak low ?  Was his discourse in-
 coherent,  or  how  was it?  Of what colour was the countenance, the
 eyes,  and the skin,  generally ?  What degree of vivacity  was there
 visible in the  face  and eyes ?  How was the tongue, the  respiration, the
 smell from the mouth, or the hearing ? Were  the pupils of the eyes
 dilated or contracted?  Did they contract and dilate quickly in light and
 darkness,  and in  what  degree?  What was the state of  the  pulse?
 What was the condition of the abdomen ?   Was the skin  moist and
 warm, cold or dry, upon this  or that  part of the body, or was it so all
 over?  Did the patient lie  with his head  thrown back, with his mouth
 wholly or half open, with his  arms crossed above his head ;  was he on
 his back, or in what position was he ?  Did he raise himself with diffi-
 culty ?  In short, the physician is  to keep notes  of every thing  he has
 observed that is strange and remarkable.

   § 91.  The symptoms which  appear, and the  sensations of
 the patient during the use of medicine  or shortly after, do not
 furnish  a true image of the  disease.   On the contrary, the
 symptoms and the inconveniences  which exhibited themselves
previous to  the use of the medicines, or  several days after their
 discontinuance, give the true fundamental notion of the original
 form  of the  malady.   These are, therefore, to be noted down
 in  preference by the  physician.   When  the  disease is of a
 chronic  nature, and  the  patient  has  already  made  use  of
 remedies, he may be  allowed  to  remain some days  without
 giving him  any medicine,  or  at  least without administering
 any thing but substances that are not  medicinal.  A rigorous
 examination may likewise be  deferred  for the same  space of
        17 
130
time, because it is the means of obtaining permanent symptoms
in all their purity, and of being able to form a true representa-
tion of the disease.

   § 92.   But  where  an acute  disease is  to  be treated, so
dangerous in  its  nature as  not to admit of  delay, and the
physician can  learn  nothing of the symptoms that manifested
themselves  previous to  the remedies,  then  he is to view the
whole of  the existing symptoms as they have been modified by
the latter, in order that he  may at least be  able to seize upon
the present state of the  disease ;  that  is to say, be enabled to
embrace in one and the same image the primitive disease and
the medicinal  affection conjointly.   The latter of these being
most frequently rendered more  severe, and at the  same time
more dangerous than the former, by the application of remedies
that are generally the very opposite of those  which  ought to
have been administered, they often demand immediate  assist-
ance, and the prompt application of the appropriate homoeopa-
thic remedy, in order to prevent  the patient  falling a sacrifice
to the irrational treatment he has undergone.

   § 93.   If  the acute disease has been caused recently, or if
the chronic  one has been  so for a longer or shorter period of
time by  some  remarkable event,  and if  the  patient  or the
parents, when  interrogated  secretly, do not disclose this  cause,
the physician must then use his address and prudence in order
to arrive at a knowledge of it.*

  * Should there be any thing humiliating in that which has given birth
to the disease, so that the patient, or those about him, hesitate in avow-
ing the cause, or at least  in  declaring it spontaneously, the physician
ought then  to seek  to discover it by questions that are skilfully turned,
or by secret enquiries.  In the catalogue of these causes are  ranked,
poisoning or attempts to commit suicide, onanism, ordinary or unnatural
debauchery, excesses at table, or in the use of wine, cordials, punch, and
other spirituous drinks, riotous  eating generally, or especially unwhole-
some food,  venereal or psoric affection, disappointed love, jealousy,
domestic disappointments, anger, grief, occasioned by a family misfor-
tune, bad treatment, repressed vengeance, injured pride, embarrassment
in pecuniary affairs, superstitious fear,  famine, defect of the organs of
reproduction, hernia, prolapsus, &c. 
131
  $ 91.  On  enquiry into the state of a chronic disease, it is
requisite to weigh the particular  circumstances in which the
patient may be placed in regard to ordinary occupation, mode
of life, and domestic situation.  All these circumstances ought
to be  examined, to discover if there is any thing  that could
give birth to  and  keep up  the disease, so  that by its removal
the cure may be facilitated.*

  * By chronic  diseases in the female  sex, it ii, above all, necessary to
pay attention to pregnancy, sterility, amorous desire, accouchement, mis-
carriage,  lactation, and  the  state of the catamenia.  As regards the
latter, it is always necessary to ask if it returns at too short intervals, or
at others  that are too distant, how long it continues, if the blood flows
uninterrupted or only at intervals, if the  flow  is copious, if it be of a dark
colour, if leucorrhoea appears before or  after; what is the state of the
body and mind previous to,  during, and subsequent  to the menses; if
the female is attacked with  leucorrhcsa, of what nature  is it;  in what
quantity does it appear, and under what circumstances, and on what
occasion did it  manifest itself.

   § 95.   In  chronic  affections, the  symptoms  before enu-
merated, and  every other appertaining to the malady, ought to
be  examined  as  rigorously as  possible,  going into  all their
minutiae.   In  short, it is in  these  diseases that they  are most
developed,  and least resemble those of acute  affections ; they
also require to be studied  with the utmost care if the treatment
is to succeed.   On  the other hand, the patients are so accus-
tomed to their long sufferings, that they pay little or  no atten-
tion to the lesser symptoms  which  are often very characteristic
of  the disease, and decisive in regard  to  the choice  of the
remedy;  they  look upon  them  as though they  were in  a
manner  belonging  to  their physical state, and constituted  a
part of that health, the real sentiment of which they had for-
gotten during the fifteen  or twenty years their sufferings have
endured,  and never entertain a suspicion that there  can  be
any connection between  these  symptoms  and  the  principal
disease.

   § 96.   Added to this, the patients themselves are of such
very  opposite tempers, that some, particularly the so  called
hypochondriacs, and  others who  are sensitive and  impatient,
depict their  sufferings in  lively  colours,  and  make  use of 
                             132

exaggerated  terms,  to induce the physician  to  relieve  them
promptly.*

  * Even the most impatient hypochondriac never invents sufferings and
symptoms that are void of foundation, and the truth of this is easily
ascertained by comparing the complaints he utters at different intervals
while the physician gives him nothing at least that is medicinal; it is
merely requisite to retrench a part of his exaggeration, or at least ascribe
the energy  of his expressions to his  excessive sensibility.  In this
respect, even the exaggeration he is guilty of in describing his sufferings
becomes an  important symptom in the list of those which constitute the
image of the disease.  It is a very different case with maniacs, and those
who feign disease through wickedness or other causes.

   § 97.  Others, on the  contrary,  either  through indolence,
mistaken modesty, or finally by a sort of mildness and timjdity,
are silent  with regard to many of the sufferings they endure,
and  only hint at them in  obscure  terms, or  point at them\as
being of little importance.                                  \

   § 98.  If it be then true that we are to rely  more particularly
upon the patient's own language in describing his sufferings
and sensations, and  prefer the expressions  he makes use of to
portray them (because his words are almost always changed in
passing through the mouths of those who are about him); it is
no less so, that in all diseases, and more especially in those of
a chronic  character, the  physician must be  possessed of an
uncommon share of circumspection and tact, a knowledge of
the human heart, prudence and patience, to be enabled to form
to himself a true and complete  image of the  disease in  all  its
details.

   §  99.  The examination into acute diseases, or those that
have recently broken out, is generally less difficult, because the
patient and  those  about him  are struck  with the difference
between the  existing  state of things and the health that has
been so recently destroyed, of which the memory still retains a
lively  image.   Here, also, the physician must necessarily  be
acquainted with every thing;  but  there is  less occasion for
being urgent in acquiring the particulars,  which, for the most
 part, come before him spontaneously. 
133
  >} 100.  With regard to a search after  the totality of the
symptoms in  epidemic and  sporadic  diseases,  it  is  wholly
indifferent whether any thing similar ever existed before in the
world or not, under any name whatever.  Neither the novelty
nor the peculiarity of an affection of this kind will make any
difference in the mode of studying it, or in that of the treatment.
In fact, we ought to  regard the pure image of each prevailing
disease as a thing that is new  and unknown, and study the
same from its foundation, if we would really exercise the art of
healing—that  is  to  say,  we ought never  to  substitute the
hypothesis  in  the room of the  observation, never  regard any
given  case  of  disease as  already  known,  either  in  part or
wholly, without having first carefully examined  all its appear-
ances.   This prudent mode of proceeding is so much the more
requisite here, as every reigning  epidemic is, in many respects,
a particular species of phenomenon, and which, upon attentive
examination, will be  found to  differ greatly from  all former
epidemics to  which  the  same  name  has been  wrongfully
applied.  We must, however, except those epidemics which are
caused by miasms that always retain  their identity, such, for
example, as the measles, small-pox, (fee.

  § 101.  It may happen  that a physician,  who, for  the first
time,  treats a person attacked with an epidemic disease, will
not immediately discover  the perfect image of  the affection,
because a knowledge of the totality  of the signs and symptoms
in these collective maladies is  not  acquired till after having
observed several cases.  However,  a practised physician will,
after having treated one or two patients, see so far into the real
state of thing's as to be often able to form to himself .a charac-
teristic  image  of  the same, and know what  homoeopathic
remedy he is to have recourse to in order to  combat the disease.

  § 102.  By carefully noting down all the symptoms observed
in several cases of this description,  the  image  that has  once
been formed of the malady will be always rendered still more
comprehensive.  It neither becomes extended  in  a greater
degree,  nor lengthened in the  detail,  but it is  made more
graphic and characteristic  of the peculiarities of the collective
malady.  On  the one side, the general symptoms (such, for 
134
example, as loss of appetite, insomnolency, (fee) acquire a still
greater degree of precision ; on the other, the special and more
marked symptoms, which are  even  rare  in epidemics, and
belong elsewhere to a small number of diseases only, develope
themselves and form  the character of the disease.*  It is true,
that  persons attacked with  an  epidemic  have all a  disease
arising from the same source, and consequently equal;  but the
entire  extent of an affection of this nature, together with the
totality of the symptoms—a knowledge of which is necessary
to form a complete  image of the morbid  state, and to choose
according to that the homoeopathic remedy most in harmony
with the ensemble of the symptoms—cannot be observed in the
case of a single patient; in order to arrive at these, it will be
requisite to  abstract them from a view of  the sufferings of
several patients of different constitutions.

  * The physician who has already in a first case discerned an approxi-
mate homoeopathic remedy will, by a study of successive ones, be ena-
bled to prove whether the choice  he  made was appropriate, or this will
point out to him a remedy that is still more suitable than the former, or
even one that is better than all others.


   §  103.   In the same manner as is here taught in reference
to epidemic, and chiefly acute diseases,  I had  to investigate
those of a miasmatic and chronic character, (always remaining
identical  in  their  nature,)  and  particularly  psora.  This
examination was conducted with much  more accuracy than
had hitherto been observed, in order to grasp the disease in its
entire compass,  since  different  patients  are  affected with
dissimilar  symptoms, and each  particular  case  embraces but
one disjointed part, as it were, of the symptoms constituting the
totality of one and the same disease.  Hence it is manifest, that
the totality of the  symptoms appertaining to such a  chronic
malady, to psora in particular, could only be collected by the
examination  of  numerous individual patients, and  without
obtaining an entire  view, and forming a collective image  of
that malady, the medicines  (viz.  the antipsorics) which are
efficient  for its entire removal, and which, at the same time,
are the true remedies for the particular cases of it, could not
be discovered. 
135
   §  104.   The totality of the symptoms which characterise a
given case—or, in other terms, the image of the disease—being
once committed  to writing, the most difficult part  is  accom-
plished.*   The physician ought ever  after to have this image
before his eyes to serve as a basis to the treatment, especially
where the disease  is  chronic.   He can  then study it in all its
parts, and draw from it the characteristic marks, in order to
oppose to these symptoms—that is to  say, to the disease itself—
a remedy that is perfectly homoeopathic,  whose choice has been
decided on  according to the nature  of  the morbid  symptoms
which it produces from its simple  action on the body.   And if,
during the course  of the treatment, he enquires after the effects
of the remedy, and the  changes that  have taken place in the
state of the patient, it only remains to obliterate from the group
of primitive symptoms those which have entirely disappeared,
to note down those of which there are still some remains, and
add  the new ones  which have supervened.

  * The physicians of the old school in their treatment of the sick adopt
an extremely  convenient method.  No accurate enquiries are heard from
them concerning all the circumstances of the case, and the  patients,
during the recital of their individual  symptoms, are not unfrequently
interrupted by the physician to prevent disturbance in the rapid writing
of his prescriptions, compounded of a medley of ingredients, the genuine
effects  of which are unknown to him. No  allasopathic physician, as
already observed, desires to know a  full  and accurate account of the
symptoms, much less to commit them to writing.  If after several days
he re-visits his patient (numerous others having been seen in  the inter-
val), he will then have  retained in his memory  little or nothing of the
minute circumstances of the case, as at first heard, and  what had passed
into  one ear will have escaped from the other. In his succeeding visits,
he does little more than ask a few general questions, feels the pulse,  looks
at the tongue, and  forthwith, without an intelligible  reason^proceeds
to write another prescription, or  directs  the former (in large and fre-
quently repeated portions through the day) to  be continued. Then with
mien polite he hastens to the fiftieth or sixtieth  patient of those whom
he has visited in the same thoughtless  manner on the same day.  Thus
a profession which, of all others, properly requires  the most reflection,
the conscientious and careful examination of each and every case, and
the special cure founded thereon,—such a profession is  thus practised by
persons who call themselves rational physicians.

   §  105.   The second point in the duty of the  physician  is ta
examine into the instruments destined  to cure natural disease?, to 
136
study the morbific powers of medicines, in order, when he is to
cure  a  disease, that  he may be  able  to find  one among the
number whose list of symptoms constitutes a factitious  disease
that resembles as closely as possible the principal  signs of the
natural malady which he intends to cure.

   § 106.   It is necessary to know the full extent of the power
by virtue of which each medicine excites a disease.   In other
terms, it is requisite that all the morbid symptoms and changes
of the health  which their action individually is capable  of pro-
ducing in the  economy shall have been observed, as  closely as
possible, before any one can hope to be able  to find or select
from  among them homoeopathic remedies that  are appropriate
to the greater  number of natural diseases.

   § 107.   If,  to arrive at this object, we were only to administer
medicines to invalids, prescribing them, one by one, in a simple
state, little  or nothing would  be seen of their pure  effects,
because  the symptoms of the natural disease then existing
mingling with those which the medicinal agents are capable of
producing, the latter can rarely be distinguished with any clear-
ness or precision.

   § 108.   Thus there is  no safer or  more natural method of
discovering the effects of medicines on  the health of man, than
by trying them separately  and singly, in moderate doses, upon
healthy individuals, and observing what changes they create in
the moral and physical state ; that is to say, what elements of
disease these substances are capable of producing :* for, as we
have  before seen (§ 24—27),  the entire  curative virtues of
medicines depend solely upon the power they have of modifying
the state of health, which is illustrated  by observing the effects
resulting from the exercise of this  faculty.
  * In the course of twenty-five centuries no physician, that  I know of,
except the immortal Haller, has ever thought of a method so natural—so
absolutely necessary, and so perfectly true—as that of observing the pure
effects of each medicine individually, in order to discover, by that means,
the diseases they were  capable of curing.   Before me, Haller was the
only one who conceived the necessity of pursuing such a plan  (see the
preface to his Pharmacopoeia Helvet. Basil, 1771, p. 12).  " Nempe pri-
mum in corpore  sano medela tentanda est, sine peregrina ulla miscela ; 
137
odoreque et sapore ejus exploralis, exigua illius dosis ingerenda et ad
omnes, quce inde conlingunt,  affectiones,  quis pulsus, quis calor, quae.
respiratio, qucenam, excretiones, attendendum.  Inde ad ductum phce-
nomenorum, in sano obviorum, transeas  ad experimenta in corpore
tegroto, c£c."  But no physician has profited by this invaluable advice;
no one has paid the slightest attention to it.


   § 109.   I  am the first who has pursued this path with a per-
severance that could  alone result from, and be supported by,
the intimate conviction of this great  truth so valuable  to  the
human race,1 that the homoeopathic administration of medicines
is the sole certain method of curing disease.2

   1 It is  as impossible that there should  be any other true method of
curing dynamic  diseases (i. e. those not surgical) besides homoeopathy,
as that more than one straight line can be described between two given
points.  How little  can they be grounded in ihe true art of healing, who
imagine that  there is  yet  another way  of curing diseases, who,  after
having thoroughly contemplated the basis of homoeopathy and practised
it with sufficient care, or, from  upright motives, have either read of or
witnessed homoeopathic cures, and, on the  other hand, duly  weighed the
groundlessness of every  species of alloeopathic treatment,  and enquired
into  the  sinister effects thence arising—who, with a loose  indifference,
place upon an  equality the  true art of  healing with that injurious
method, or pronounce it  the sister of homoeopathy, whose company she
cannot dispense with!  My conscientious  successors, the genuine  and
accurate adherents  of homoeopathy, who have practised it  with almost
infallible success, could teach them a better lesson.
   2 The first fruits of my labours, so far as they could then be perfected,
are contained in a work entitled Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum
positivis, sive in sano corp. hum. observatio, p.  i. ii. Leipsic, 1805, in
8vo.   Others, that  are still  more matured, are  contained in  the  two
editions of my  Materia Medica,  (Reine  Arzneimittellehre, 6 vols, in
Sro., third edition,  1833,) and  in the second and following volumes of
my  Treatise on Chronic Diseases.  Die  Chronische  Krankheiten.
Dresden,  1828,  in 8ro., second edition, 1835.


   §  110.  On  perusing the works of  authors who have written
upon the morbid  effects caused by medicinal substances, which,
through  negligence, mischief,  criminal intent, or otherwise,  had
got into the  stomachs of healthy  individuals in large quantities,
I saw that the  facts they contained  coincided with the observa-
tions which I had  made in trying them on myself and other
persons in health.   These  are reported  as cases of poisoning,
        18 
138
 and as proofs of the inherent, pernicious effects of these ener-
 getic agents, pointing out  the danger of making use of them.
 By some, they have been mentioned for no other purpose than
 that of making a parade of the skill they manifested in the dis-
 covery of remedies  which gradually restored the health of
 persons that otherwise would have been lost by such  violent
 means. Others, to free their consciences of the death of patients,
 have alleged the malignity of these substances which they then
 designated poisons.   Not one among them has ever suspected
 that the symptoms, in which they wished merely to see proofs
 of the poisonous qualities of drugs which produce them, were
 certain indications that disclosed the existence in these identical
 substances of the  faculty of annihilating  (under  the  title of
 remedies) similar  symptoms  in  natural  diseases.  No  one
 imagined that the  evils which  they excite were so  many
 certain proofs  of  their homoeopathic  effects.  They  never
 imagined that an observance of the changes to which medi-
 cines give birth in healthy persons was the  sole means of dis-
 covering  their medicinal  and curative  virtues, because they
 can  neither  arrive at this result by any specious  reasoning
 a priori, nor by the smell, taste, or  appearance of the medicinal
 substances, not  by  chemical  analysis, nor  by administering
 prescriptions to  patients where they  are  associated  with  a
 less  or greater number of other drugs.   Finally, none of
 them ever had the slightest presentiment that these histories of
 diseases  produced  by medicine would  one day  furnish  the
 elements of a true and pure materia medica—a science  which,
 from  its origin down to the present time,  has consisted of a
 mass of false conjectures and fictions, or  which, in other terms,
 never yet had any real existence*
  * See what  I have said on this  subject in my " Treatise  on the
 Sources of the  ordinary Materia Medica," in the third part of the  " Reine
 Arzneimittellehre."

  § 111.  The conformity of my  observations upon the pure
 effects of  medicines with those of a more ancient date,  which
 were  made  without  reference to  any curative aim, and even
 the correspondence of these latter with others of a similar kind
 that  are spread  throughout the writings of  various authors,
plainly prove to  us  that  medicinal substances,  in creating 
139
a morbid state in healthy persons, follow fixed and eternal laws
of nature, and are, in virtue of those laws, severally capable of
producing, (each according to its own peculiar properties,) certain
positive morbid symptoms.

  § 112.   In the descriptions that  have been handed down to
us by early writers of  the frequent dangerous  consequences
resulting from the administration of medicines in large  doses,
symptoms  have  also been remarked  that did not  show them-
selves at the beginning of these sad events, but merely towards
the conclusion, and which were perfectly opposite to those at
the commencement.  These  symptoms, contrary to the  primi-
tive effect (§ 63), or  to the so called  action of medicines on  the
body,  are  owing  to  the  re-action of the  vital  force of  the
organism.  They constitute  the secondary and consecutive effect
(§ 62—67), whose traces are seldom perceived when moderate
doses, by way of trial, are employed,  and when  the doses  are
small, no vestige ever remains, because in homoeopathic cures
the living organism never re-acts  beyond  what is absolutely
necessary to bring the disease back  to the natural state of health
(§67).

  §  113.   Narcotic substances, alone, are  exceptions to  this
rule.   As they, in their primitive effects, extinguish sensibility,
sensation, and irritability, to a certain  extent,  it often  happens
that when they are tried on  healthy persons, even  in moderate
doses, they have the secondary effect of exciting  the sensibility
and increasing the  irritability.

  § 114.   But with the exception of narcotic substances, all
medicines that  are  tried in small doses, upon healthy persons,
only  manifest their primitive effects;  that is to say, the symp-
toms  which  indicate  that they modify  the  habitual state of
health, and excite  a  morbid condition which is to last for a
longer or shorter period.

  § 115.   Among  the  primitive effects  of some medicines,
there are  several to be  found  that are contrary, or at least in
certain respects, accessory, to other symptoms which a fterwards
appear in succession.   This circumstance, however, if sufficient 
140
to make us regard  them as so  called consecidive effects, or as a
simple  result of the re-action of the organism.   They merely
mark  the transition  from one to the other of the  different
paroxysms of the primitive action.   They are called alternative
effects.

   §  116.   Certain  symptoms are  excited by medicines  more
frequently than others—that is to say, in many patients ;  some
are more rarely  produced, and in  a small  number of persons,
while yet others are only so in a few individuals.

   §  117.   To these last belong the so called idiosyncrasies, by
which  are meant  particular constitutions,  which, though in
other respects healthy, yet have a tendency to be  placed in a
greater  or less morbid state by certain things that do not appear
to make any  impression on many  other  persons, or cause any
change in them.1   But this absence of effect upon such or such
an individual is only  so  in  appearance.  In short, as the pro-
duction  of every morbid change  whatever pre-supposes the
faculty of action in the medicinal substance, and in the patient
that of being  affected by it, the manifest changes of health that
take place in idiosyncrasies cannot be wholly attributed to the
particular constitution of the patient.   It is necessary to ascribe
these, at the  same  time, to the things that have given  them
birth, and which embrace the  faculty of exercising the  same
influence over all men, with this exception, that among healthy
persons there are but a small number who have a tendency to
allow themselves to be placed in so decided a morbid condition.
What proves that these agents really make an impression  upon
all individuals is,  that  they  cure  homoeopathically in  all
patients the same morbid  symptoms as those which they them-
selves appear to excite only in persons subject to idiosyncrasies.2
  1 The  smell of the rose will cause certain persons to faint; others are
sometimes attacked with dangerous diseases after eating muscles, crabs,
or the fry of the barbel, and after touching the leaves of a certain species
of sumac.
  2 Thus the Princess Maria Porphyrogeneta restored her brother, the
Emperor Alexius, suffering from  syncope, by sprinkling him with rose
water, (rb ru« l&luv <nKha.yp.a.), in the presence of her aunt,  Eudoxia,
(Hist. Byz. Alexias, lib. 15. p. 503, ed. Posser.), and Horstius (Oper. iii.
p. 59,) saw that vinegar of roses was very helpful in syncope. 
141
  § 118.   Each  medicine produces  particular  effects in the
body of man, and no other medicinal substance can create any
that are precisely similar.*

  * This fact was also recognised by Haller, who says, (in the preface
to his Hist. Stirp. Helv.), " Latet  immensa  virium diversitas  in Us
ipsis plantis, quarum fades externas dudum novimus, animas quasi
et quodcunque celestius habent, nondum perspeximusP


   § 119.    In the same manner that each species  of plant differs
from all others in its external form and peculiar  mode of  vege-
tation—its smell  and  taste;  in the same  manner  that  each
mineral and each salt differs  from  others in regard to external
character as well  as  internal chemical  properties, (a circum-
stance which alone ought to have sufficed to prevent confusion.)
in  the same manner do all these substances likewise differ from
each other in regard to their morbific effects, and, consequently,
their curative  powers.1   Each  substance  exercises upon  the
health  of man  a  certain and particular influence, which does
not allow itself to be confounded with any other.2

  1 He who knows that the action of each substance upon the body differs
from that  of every other, and who can appreciate the importance of this
fact, will  have no difficulty  in discovering that there  can be  no such
things (in a medical point of view) as succedanea—that is to say, medi-
cines that are equivalent, and capable of replacing each other mutually.
It is only  he who is ignorant of the certain and pure  effects of medicinal
substances, that can be so foolish as to endeavour to persuade us that one
remedy can serve in the room of another, and produce the same salutary
effect in any given case of disease.  In this manner children, through
their simplicity, confound things  that are  essentially different, because
they hardly know them otherwise  than by their exterior, and have no
idea of their innate properties or of their real intrinsic value.
  2 If this be the pure truth, as it undoubtedly is, then  can no physician
who wishes to preserve a quiet conscience, and to be looked upon as a
reasonable man,  henceforward prescribe any other medicines than those
with whose true  value he is precisely and thoroughly  acquainted—that
 is to say, those whose action upon  healthy individuals he has studied
with sufficient attention  to be convinced that any particular one  among
 them was that which, of all others, produced  the  morbid  state most
resembling the natural disease it was intended to cure  ; for, as we have
before seen, neither man nor  nature ever effects a perfect, prompt, and dur-
able cure, but by the aid of  a homoeopathic remedy.  No physician can,
 therefore, in future, disregard a research of this nature,  without which it 
142
would be impossible for  him to acquire  the knowledge of medicines
indispensable to the exercise of his art, which has been neglected till
the present time.  Posterity will scarcely believe that, until the present
day, physicians have always contented themselves with administering
blindly in disease  remedies of whose real value they  were ignorant,
whose pure and dynamic effects, upon healthy persons,  they had never
studied, and that they were in  the habit of mixing several of those un-
known substances  whose  action is so diversified, and  then left it  to
chance to dispose of whatever might accrue to  the patient from this
treatment.  It is in this manner that a madman, who has just forced his
way into the workshop of  an artist, seizes with open hands upon all the
tools within his reach for the purpose of finishing a work which he finds
in a state of preparation.  Who can doubt but that he  will spoil it by
the ridiculous manner in which he goes to work, or perhaps even destroy
it entirely ?

  § 120.   Thus  we ought to distinguish medicines carefully
one from  another, since it is on them that life and death, dis-
ease and health, depend.  To effect this, it is necessary to  have
recourse  to pure experiments, made with care, for the purpose
of developing the properties that belong to them, and the true
effects which they produce on  healthy individuals.   By this
mode of proceeding we may learn to know them properly, and
so avoid their misapplication  in  the treatment of disease, for
nothing but a judicious choice of the  remedy that is to be em-
ployed can ever restore to the patient, in a prompt and perma-
nent manner, that  supreme of all earthly blessings—a sound
mind in a healthy body.

   § 121.  In studying the  effects of medicines upon healthy
persons, it must not be  forgotten that even  the administration
of moderate  doses of the so called heroic remedies is sufficient
to produce  modifications  in the  health of the  most robust
individuals.   Medicines that are more gentle in  their nature
ought to be  given  in larger doses if we would likewise  prove
their action.   Finally, if we would try the effects of the weakest
substances, the experiment must  be made upon  persons only
who are,  it is true, free from  disease, but who,  at the  same
time, are possessed of a delicate, irritable, and sensitive consti-
tution.

   § 122.  In circumstances of this nature,  on which depend
the certitude of the medical art, and the welfare of future gene- 
143
 rations, it is necessary to employ only medicines that are  well
 known, such as we are convinced remain pure, unadulterated,
 and possessed of their full energy.

   §  123.   Each of these medicines  ought to be taken in its
 simple and pure  form.  As to indigenous plants, the juice is
 expressed and mixed with a small quantity of alcohol, in order
 to preserve it from corruption.   With regard  to foreign plants,
 they are to be pulverised or prepared as  spirituous  tinctures,
 and mixed with a  certain quantity of water  previous to
 administration.   Salts and gums, however, ought not to be dis-
 solved in water  till the moment they are to be used.   If a plant
 cannot be procured but in its dry state, and if its powers are
 naturally feeble, it may be tried in the form of an  infusion ;
 that is  to  say, after  having cut it up small, boiling water  is
 poured upon it,  in order to  extract its virtues.   The infusion
 ought to be drunk immediately after its preparation, and while
 it is still warm, because all the juices of plants, and all vegetable
 infusions to  which  no alcohol is  added, pass  rapidly  into
 fermentation and  corruption, and thereby lose their medicinal
 virtues.

   §  124.   Every  medicinal substance that is submitted to  a
 trial of this nature ought to be  employed alone, and perfectly
 pure.  Care must be taken not  to add, any heterogenous sub-
 stance to it, or to use any other  medicine, either on  the same
 day  and much less on those that follow, if we would observe
 the effect it is capable of producing.

  §  125.   During the whole time of this experiment the  diet
must be extremely  moderate.   It is  necessary  to abstain as
much as possible  from spices, and to  make use of nothing  but
simple  food that is merely  nourishing, carefully  avoiding all
green vegetables,1  roots,  sallads,  and soups with  herbs, all of
which, notwithstanding the  preparations they have undergone,
are aliments that still retain  some small  medicinal energy that
disturbs the effect of the medicine.  The drink is  to remain the
same as that in daily use, taking care that it is as little stimu-
lating as possible.2 
144
  1 Green peas, French beans, and even carrots, may be allowed, as being
vegetables that contain the least medicinal properties.
  2 The subject of experiment must  either have been previously unac-
customed to the use of wine, ardent spirits, coffee, or tea, or have for
some time thoroughly abstained from these stimulating and medicinally
injurious beverages.

  § 126.  The person on whom this experiment is tried  ought
to avoid all fatiguing  labour of mind and  body,  all excesses,
debauches, or mental excitement, during the whole of the time
that it  continues.  No  urgent  business must  prevent  him
making the necessary  observations, and  he must of his own
accord be  scrupulously attentive to every thing that passes in
the interior of the body without permitting any thing to  inter-
rupt his care, and finally, unite  with a healthy body  (in its
kind) a necessary degree of judgment, that he may be able to
express and describe clearly all the sensations he experiences.

  § 127.  Medicines  should be tried on the persons of women
as well as of men, in order that those changes in  the economy
which are referable to difference  of  sex, may be clearly ascer-
tained.

  § 128.   The  most recent  experience has taught that  medi-
cinal substances,  when taken  by the experimenter in their
crude  state for  the purpose  of  testing their peculiar effects,
do not for a long time display  the full extent of  those virtues
which lie concealed within them, as is the case when they are
taken in  higher developments,  i. e.  exalted  in power by  due
trituration and agitation.  By means of this simple mode of pre-
paration, the virtues which, in the crude state of the medicines,
lay concealed and, as it were,  dormant  within them, become
incredibly developed   and aroused into  activity.  Thus,  any
one even of those medicines  whose virtues are  considered
weak, is now found to be the most advantageously investigated,
if from four to  six minute saccharine  globules impregnated
with  the  thirtieth (decillionth) dilution of such medicine,  and
mixed with a little water, be given to the experimenter  every
morning,  fasting, and  continued for several days.

   § 129.   When the  effects of one such dose  appear to be 
145
weak, then it  may be daily increased a few globules, until the
effects become stronger and more distinct, until the changes in
the system be evident,  for one particular  medicine does not
affect every individual  in a like manner,  or  with the same
degree of energy ;  on the contrary there exists, in this respect,
the greatest diversity possible.  Sometimes a person apparently
delicate is not at all affected  by a medicine that is known to be
very powerful, though administered in moderate doses, while
other  substances  that  are  much weaker   make  a tolerable
impression on him.  At the same  time, there are individuals of
robust constitutions who experience very considerable  morbid
symptoms from medicinal agents that are apparently mild, and,
on the other hand, they are likewise but little affected by others
that  are  powerful.  But as it can  never be  known beforehand
which of these two  cases will occur, it is proper that  each
should  commence  with  a  small  dose, and  be  afterwards
increased progressively, if deemed requisite.  Advancing, from
day to day, to higher and still higher doses.

   §  130.  If at the commencement, and after administering the
first  dose, the effects are sufficiently powerful, one advantage
results from  it, which is, that the  person  who  undergoes the
experiment becomes  acquainted  with the  succession of symp-
toms which this  agent principally excites, and is  enabled to
note them down with  precision  the moment they appear, a
circumstance of vast import to a knowledge of the character of
medicines, because the order of their primitive effects, and like-
wise that of  their alternative effects,  is thus exhibited in the
least equivocal manner.  A very weak dose  often suffices, if
the individual on whom it is tried is endowed with great sensi-
bility, and pays due attention to his state.   The length  of time
that  the action of a medicine continues, can only be known by
a comparison of the results of several experiments.

   §  131.  If, to acquire at least some knowledge of a medicine,
it is  found requisite to  administer to  the same person, several
days in  succession, doses of the same, progressively increased,
this  may show us the  various morbid changes  that this sub-
stance is capable of exciting generally ; but we do not learn  the
order of their succession, and a  succeeding dose  often extin-
       19 
146
guishes one or other of the  symptoms  produced by the pre-
ceding one, or creates in its place a contrary state.  Symptoms
of this kind should be noted between two parentheses, as being
equivocal, until new experiments of a purer nature shall have
decided whether they are to be considered as the re-action of
the organism, or the alternative effects of the medicine.

   § 132.  But where it is intended merely to find out what are
the symptoms that a medicinal  substance, particularly a weak
one, is  capable  of  producing by itself, without paying any
attention to the  order of these symptoms, or to the duration of
the action  of  the  medicine,  it  is advisable to  continue  the
experiment several  days  successively,  only augmenting  the
dose each day.  By this means, the effects of even  the most
gentle medicines that are unknown will  come to light, particu-
larly if they are tried on a sensitive person.

   § 133.  Should  the individual who undergoes the experi-
ment experience  any particular inconvenience from the action
of the medicine,  it is useful, and even necessary, to the exact
determination  of the symptom, that he should  place himself
successively in various postures, and observe the changes that
ensue.   Thus he will be  enabled  to  examine whether  the
motion communicated to the suffering parts by walking up and
down the chamber, or in the open air, seated, lying down, or
standing, has  the effect of augmenting,  diminishing, or dissi-
pating  the  symptom, and if it returns or not upon resuming
the original position.  He will also perceive whether it changes
when he eats or drinks, or by any other condition, when he
speaks, coughs, or sneezes, or in  any other action of the body
whatsoever.  He must also observe at what hour of the day or
night the symptom more particularly  manifests itself.  All
these details are  requisite, in order to discover what is peculiar
and characteristic in each symptom.

   § 134.  All external agents, particularly medicines, produce
changes in the state of the living organism that vary each in
themselves.  But the  whole of the symptoms peculiar to any
medicinal substance whatever,  never  manifest themselves in
the same individual, neither do they appear simultaneously, or 
147
during a single experiment; on  the contrary, the same person
experiences, in preference, at one time, one set of symptoms,
and in a second or third experiment yet others, (with another
person these or other  symptoms will appear,) so that by the
fourth, eighth,  or  tenth person, perhaps, some or more of the
symptoms  which  had  already  manifested  themselves in the
second, sixth,  ninth, &e, will be  visible.  Neither  do the
symptoms re-appear at  the same hour.

  § 135.   It is only by  repeated  observations  made upon a
great number of individuals of both sexes, properly selected for
the purpose from among a variety of constitutions, that we can
acquire a pretty, accurate knowledge of the whole of the morbid
effects that a medicine  is capable of producing.   There can be
no certainty of having properly proved the symptoms of any
medicinal agent—that  is to say, of the faculty which it has of
changing the health, until such time as the persons who make
further trials of it perceive but few new symptoms arising from
its use, and observe almost always only those that have  been
previously remarked by other persons.

  § 136.   Although, as before stated, the medicine that is tried
upon  a healthy person  cannot manifest on a single individual
all the modifications of health which it is capable of producing,
and only exhibits them in  several persons, differing  from one
another in regard to physical constitution and  moral disposi-
tion, it is,  however, equally true that the eternal and immu-
table law of nature has endowed it with the faculty of exciting
these  symptoms in every human  being (§ 117).  This is the
cause of all its effects, of even those which it is rarely seen to
produce in- healthy persons, but which do  not  fail  to appear
when administered to a patient  attacked with a  disease resem-
bling  the one it is capable of exciting.  Provided the medicine
be homoeopathically chosen, and administered even in the
smallest doses possible, it will then produce in the patient  an
artificial state approaching  closely to the natural disease, and
cure the latter in a prompt and durable manner.

  § 137.  The  more moderate  the  dose  (without,  however,
going beyond a certain limit) the more  are the primitive effects 
148
developed, which are most important  to be known.  Scarcely
any but the latter will then be perceptible, and there will be
hardly any traces  of re-action.   But it is  understood  that the
individual on whom the experiment is made must be  one who
can be relied upon  in regard to veracity—that he is moderate
in every respect,  of a sensitive  mind  and  body, and  shall
attend to his person with all possible care.   On the other hand,
if the dose  be  excessive, there will  not only be several  re-
actions visible among the symptoms, but yet more, the primi-
tive effects will manifest themselves in a manner so precipitate,
violent, and confused, that it will  be  impossible to make any
correct observation.  Let us add to this, the danger that might
result from  it to  the individual on whom  the experiment is
tried, which cannot  be  regarded as a  matter of indifference by
one who has any respect for his fellow-mortals, and who looks
upon every human being in the light of a brother.

   § 138.  Provided all the conditions before stated (§ 124—
127) (which are necessary to the trial of a pure experiment) be
complied with,  the  symptoms, modifications, and  changes of
the health that  are  visible during the action of the medicine,
depend upon that  substance alone, and ought to be noted down
as properly belonging to it, if even similar symptoms, occurring
spontaneously, should have been experienced a long time before
by the  person  on whom the experiment is made.  The re-
appearance of those symptoms, in the  course of the experiment,
only proves  that in virtue of his own constitution this person
has a special tendency to admit of  their manifestation.  In this
case, they are the  effects of the medicine,  for it cannot be said
that  they  came of themselves  at a moment when  a  powerful
medicinal agent exercised its sway over the entire organism.

   § 139.  Where the physician does not try the remedy on his
own person, and the experiment is made on another individual,
it is requisite for  the latter to note down, with perspicuity, all
the sensations, inconveniences, symptoms, and changes, that he
experiences  at the very moment of their occurrence.  He must
also be able to tell what time elapsed between the  administra-
tion of the medicine and the  appearance of each symptom, and
in case they continued any length of  time, what was the exact 
149
period of their duration.  The physician is to read this report,
immediately after it is finished, in the presence of the person on
whom the experiment  is made, or if it lasts  several days, he
then reads it over each day, in order that, by refreshing  his
memory, the person may be enabled  to reply  to the questions
which it  may be necessary to put to him relative to the precise
nature of each symptom, and  to give him an opportunity of
adding fresh details, or making any necessary corrections.*
  * He who publishes to the medical world such experiments, is respon-
sible for the credibility of the experimenter, as well  as for the correct-
ness of his statements, and very properly so, as the  welfare of suffering
humanity is at stake.

   § 140.   If the individual cannot write, the physician  must
then interrogate him each day, in order to learn his sensations.
But this  examination ought, for  the most part, to be confined
to listening to his narrative.  The  physician  must not indulge
in any conjectures or suppositions,  and he  is  to  ask as few
questions as possible, taking care to maintain  the same circum-
spection  and  reserve,  which  I  have   before  recommended
(§ 84—99),  as an  indispensable  precaution in  seeking  the
information requisite to form the  image of the natural disease.

   §  141.   But of  all  the  pure experiments  relative to  the
changes  which simple  medicines  produce,  and  the morbid
symptoms they excite in healthy persons, those are always the
best which a physician (enjoying  a  good state of health, free
from  prejudice, and  able to analyse his sensations) makes on
his own person, observing,  at  the  same  time, the precautions
that have just been prescribed.   A thing is never more certain
than when it has been tried on ourselves.*
  * The experiments that are made on our own persons have one advan-
tage above all others.  In the  first place, they furnish a conviction of
this great  truth,  that the curative  virtues of medicines depend  solely
upon the  power they  possess of creating changes  in the physical
economy of man.  In the second place,  they teach us to understand our
own sensations, mind,  and disposition, which is the source of all true
wisdom, (yi>w§i o-setvTov), and exercise  our powers of observation, an
indispensable  talent in a physician.  All our observations on others are
by no  means  so interesting as those made on ourselves.  In  all the
observations made on other individuals, it is  continually to be  feared 
150
 that the person making trial of the remedy may not exactly experience
 that which he says, or will not express in  a proper manner that which
 he feels.  The physician must always remain in doubt, or at least partly
 so, whether he is deceived or not.  This obstacle to a knowledge of the
 truth, which cannot be entirely obviated  in a  search after the morbid
 symptoms excited in another person by the action of the remedy, does
 not exist where the trial is made on our own persons.   The individual
 who undergoes the experiment knows precisely what he feels, and every
 fresh attempt that he makes is  an additional motive for him to extend
 his researches  still farther, by directing them towards other remedies.
 It renders him more expert in pursuing farther  trials, while at the same
 time his zeal is redoubled, because he thereby acquires a true knowledge
 of the resources of the art, which can be considerably increased.  Do
 not let  him suppose, on the other hand, that the slight inconveniences
 which he subjects himself to in trying the  medicines on his own person
 can  be  detrimental to his  health.  On the contrary,  experience  has
 shown us that  they only render  the body  more apt to  repel all natural
 and  artificial morbific causes, and harden it  against  their  influence.
 The same experience also teaches, that thereby the health becomes more
 firm, and the body more robust.

   §  142.  But how the  symptoms,* produced  by a  simple
 medicine, can  be distinguished among  the symptoms of  the
 original  disease,  even  in those  which  mostly retain  their
 identity,  more especially chronic  diseases,  is  an object  for
 superior discernment, and to be left to masters in observation.

  * Symptoms which had  been  remarked  only  a long time before, if at
 all throughout the whole course of the disease, and which, of course, are
 new ones, and are the product of the medicine.

   §  143.  After having thus tried a number of simple medi-
 cines upon the healthy body, faithfully and carefully noting all
 the symptoms they are capable of producing  as  artificial  mor-
 bific agents, then  only can we acquire a true materia medica—
that is  to say, a  catalogue of the pure and  certain effects of
medicinal substances.   This  will  furnish us with a code of
nature,  in which will be inscribed, from every agent so investi-
gated, a considerable number of particular symptoms, as  they
 were manifested  to  the  observation of the  experimenter;
among  these, are the (homoeopathic)  morbid elements  resem-
bling  those  of several  natural  diseases   which  are here-
 after to  be cured  by  them; in  a  word,  they comprehend
artificial  morbid states  which supply, for the similar morbid 
151
states  naturally induced, the  only true, homoeopathic, i.  e.
specific instruments of certain and permanent cure.

  § 144.   A materia medica of this nature shall  be free from
all  conjecture, fiction, or gratuitous assertion—it shall contain
nothing but the pure language of nature, the results of a care-
ful and faithful research.

  § 145.   We ought certainly to be acquainted with the pure
action of a vast number of medicines upon the healthy  body,
to be  able to find homoeopathic remedies against each of the
innumerable forms of disease that besiege  mankind—that is to
say, to find out artificial morbific powers that  resemble them.1
But thanks to the truth of the symptoms, and to the multitude
of morbid elements which each  of the energetic medicines that
have  been tried till the present day upon healthy persons have
exhibited, there  now remain but  few  diseases  against which
we  do not  find in  these substances  suitable  homoeopathic
remedies,2 which restore health  in  a gentle, certain, and perma-
nent  manner.  An infinitely greater number  of diseases  are
cured by these  means, and  in a far  safer and more certain
manner, than by a treatment guided by the general and special
therapeutics of alloeopathy,  with  all  its unknown and mixed
medicines,  which only  alter and impair, but cannot  cure,
chronic diseases, and rather retard than promote recovery from
those that are acute.
  1 At first I was the only individual who made it a chief and important
study  to find out the principal and pure effects of medicines.  But what
cures shall we not be able to perform in the vast empire of disease, when
numerous  observers,** upon whose accuracy and veracity we  can rely,
shall have contributed the result of their researches (trials on their own
persons) to enrich  this  materia medica, the only one that is founded on
fact.  The art of curing will then approach to the same degree of cer-
tainty as the science of mathematics.
  2 See the third note to §  109.
  ** Among the remedies which have been tried more particularly, the following
were at first introduced :—
1. By  Hahnemann.—Aconitum,  alumina, amanita,  ambra,  ammoniee carbonas,
  angustura, argentum, arnica, arseniosum acidum, artemisia santonica, asarum,
  aurum; barytae carbonas, belladonna,  bismuthi subnitras, bryonia;  calcis car-
  bonas, calcis sulphuretum, camphora,  cannabis, cantharis, capsicum, carbo ani-
  malis, carbo vegetabilis, causticum, chamomilla, chelidonium, cicuta, cinchona, 
152
  cocculus, colocynthis, conium, copaiva, cyclamen ;  digitalis, drosera, dulcamara;
  euphrasia; ferrum; graphiles, guaiacum; helleborus, hydrarg. solub., hydrarg.
  corros., hyoscyamus ; iodium, ipecacuanha; ledum, lycopodium ;  magnes. carb.,
  magn. mur., manganum,  menyanthes,  moschus,  mur.  acidum;  nitri acidum,
  nux vomica; oleander, opium ; petroleum, phosphorus, phosphoric, acid., potassae
  carbonas, pulsatilla; rheum, ruta ; sambucus,  sassaparilla, scilla, sepia,  silica,
  sodas carbonas, sodii chloretum, spigelia,  spongia, stannum, staphisagria, stra-
  monium, sulphur, sulphuric, acid.; taraxacum, toxicodendron, thuya ; veratrufii,
  verbascum, viola tricolor.                                               v
2. By Stapf.—Agnus, anacardium, antimonii et potassae  tartras; baryta? acetas;
  clematis, coffea, colchicum ; euphorbium ;  lamium ; marum verum ; mezereum ;
  paris.; sabadilla, sabina.
3. By Gross and Stapf.—Crocus;  platina.
4. By Gross.—Epeira; sodae nitras; viola odorata.
5. By Franz.—Assa fcetida ; cuprum ; ranunculus ;  veleriana; zincurn.
6. By Hartlaub.—iEthusa, antimon. sulphuretum ;  bovista ;  cantharis ; gratiola ;
  indigo;  kramcria  ; laurocerasus; oleum  animale; phellandrium, phosphorus,
  plumbum, potassae iodidum ; strontianum ; tabacum, terebinthi oleum.
7. By Hering.—Arum; brucea; caladium, curcas ; jambos ; lachesis et crotams;
  phosphas calcis, psorinum; selenium, sericum, solanum  mammosum; theridion;
  urea.
8. By Heine.—Actaea, alkekengi, aquilegia ;  chenopodium, chiococca ; nigella.
9. By Nenning.—Ammonia? murias; magn.  sulphas, millefolium;  niccolum; sodae
  sulphas ; tongo.
10.  By Caspari.—Castoreum ; terri oxyd.  magnetienm.
11.  By Wahle.—Laurocerasus ; prunus  spinosa.
12.  By Seidel.—Rhododendron ; senega.
13. By Schreter.—Potassae nitras; sodae boras.
14.  a, Ey Apel.—Amanita,    b,  Attomyr.—Corallia.  c,  Bute.—Rhus  vernix.
  d, Helbig.—Myristica.   e, Hesse.—Berberis.  f, Trinks.—Secale.
  At the same time, while making trials, they  mutually  assisted each other, and
had help from many  others, so that, in addition to the names above given, we find
mentioned among those who tried them, the following :—Ahner, Adams, Becher,
Bethman,  Baehr, Behlert, Bauer,  Becker, Cubitz, Flamming, Freitag, Gatmann,
Gersdorff,  Fr. Hahnemann,  Hartmann, Ilaubold, Ilromada, Hempel,  Hornburg,
Hugo, Haynel, Ihm, Kumrner, Langhammer, Lehmann, Lingen, Matlack,  Meyer,
Michler, Miiller, Pleyel, Preu, Th. and L.  Riickert, Rummel, Rosazewsky, Romig,
Reichhelm, Schoenke, Sonnenberg, Schweickert, Schmid, Schmoele, Teuthorn,
Tieze, Wagner, Wislicenus, Wesselhoft, De  Young ; and a great many  individuals
participated, more or less, some handing in  their  names,  and others contributing
anonymously.                                                    C.  Hg.


   § 146.   The  third  point in the  duty of  a physician  is  to
employ  those medicines whose pure effects  have been proved
upon a healthy  person in  the  manner best suited to  the cure of
natural diseases  homeopathically.


   §  147.   Of all these medicines, that  one whose symptoms 
153
bear the greatest resemblance  to  the  totality of those which
characterise any particular natural disease ought to be the most
appropriate  and  certain  homoeopathic  remedy that  can  be
employed—it is the specific remedy in  this case of disease.

   § 148.  A remedy which has  the  power and  tendency to
produce an artificial disease closely resembling the natural one
against which it is employed, and  which  is administered in
proportionate doses, affects, in its action on  the  organism, pre-
cisely  those  parts  which had  till  then been  a prey to the
natural disease, and excites in them the artificial disease which
it  is naturally capable of producing.  The  latter, by reason of
its similitude  and greater intensity, now substitutes itself for
the natural  disease.  From that moment it then results that
the vital powers no  longer  suffer  from the last  mentioned,
which, in its quality of purely dynamic immaterial power, has
already ceased to exist.  The organism is no longer attacked
but by the medicinal disease.   But the  dose  of the remedy
administered  having been very small, the medicinal disease
soon disappears of itself.   Subdued by the  energy of the vital
power, like every other mild medicinal  affection, it leaves the
body  free from suffering—that  is, in a perfect and permanent
state of health.

   § 149.  When a proper application  of  the homoeopathic
remedy has been made,* the acute disease which is to be cured,
however  malignant and painful it may be, subsides in a few
hours, if recent, and in a few  days, if it is somewhat  older.
Every trace of indisposition vanishes; scarcely any thing is
seen of the artificial disease produced  by the remedy; and
health is  restored by a speedy and  almost insensible  transition.
Diseases  that  are of long standing, especially those which are
complicated, require  a longer treatment.   Particularly  those
chronic artificial maladies which the  maltreatment of  the
allceopathists so  often  produce, and  which, along with  the
uncured natural disease, requires a far longer time for recovery;
they are  often nearly incurable, by reason of  the  shameless
deprivation of  the vital energies of the patient, the  prevailing
and principal measure adopted by the  allceopathists in their so
called cures.
      20 
154
  * But the difficult and  sometimes very laborious affair of searching
out and selecting the homoeopathic medicine, which shall be adapted in
all respects to the morbid  conditions of a given case, is one which, not-
withstanding all the praise-worthy attempts to simplify the labour  by
adminiculary publications, requires the study of the sources themselves,
besides the exercise of much circumspection  and deliberation, which
meet with their best recompense in the consciousness of having faith-
fully performed our duties.  But how will  this careful and  laborious
process, by which the best cure of diseases can only be effected, please
the gentlemen of the new  mongrel sect, who, while pluming themselves
with the  honourable title of homoeopathists, for  appearance  sake, ad-
minister a medicine in the form of homoeopathic, that they have hastily
snatched  up (quidquid in buccam venit).  If  it does  not  immediately
relieve, they will not impute the failure to their own unpardonable indo-
lence and levity in  hurrying over one of the most important and critical
of human  concerns, but  to homoeopathy,—they reproach its  imperfec-
tions, because  it does  not of itself, without any trouble on their part,
provide the suitable homoeopathic remedy, and, as it were, serve it up
like food already cooked, and prepared  to their  hands.  They  know,
indeed, full well how to  console themselves for the failure of their
scarcely  half homoeopathic remedy,  by dexterously calling in requisi-
tion the  more  pliable resources of alloeopathy, whence a few dozen
of leeches  are applied, or a small and harmless venesection of eight
or ten  ounces  is prescribed in due form; and if, after all, the patient
should recover, they extol the  leeches and the venesection,  &c, as
if he would not have  recovered  without them.   They  cause it to be
understood in no equivocal language  that, without the trouble of racking
their brains, these  operations afforded by the  pernicious routine of the
old school would, in truth, have been the best means of  cure.   If, how-
ever, the  patient should  sink under the treatment, they endeavour to
soothe  the disconsolate relatives, by declaring "that they themselves
were witnesses, how that  every thing imaginable had been done for the
deceased."  Who would honour such a light minded and pernicious sect,
by calling them, after  the difficult yet beneficent art, homoeopathic phy-
sicians 7

   § 150.  If a patient complain of slightly accessory symptoms,
which have just appeared, the physician ought not to take this
state of things for  a perfect malady that  seriously demands
medicinal aid.   A change in the diet and mode of life usually
suffices  to remove so slight an indisposition.

   § 151.   But if the few symptoms of which the patient com-
plains are very violent, the physician who  attentively  observes
him  will  generally discover many  others  which   are less
developed, and which furnish a perfect picture of the malady. 
155
   §  152.   The more intense an acute disease, the more evident
 and numerous are its symptoms, while at  the  same time it is
 also easy to discover suitable remedies, provided there is a suffi-
 cient number  of medicines to select from, whose positive action
 on the body is known.  Among the symptoms produced by a
 great number of medicines, it is easy to find one that contains
 morbid elements, from which  might be composed an artificial
 disease very  similar to  the totality  of the symptoms of the
 natural disease that  is present.  This  is precisely the  remedy
 that is desirable.

   §   53.   In  searching after a homoeopathic specific remedy-
 that is to say, in making a comparison of the entire symptoms
 of the natural disease with those produced by known remedies,
 in order to discover  among  the latter  an  artificial morbific
 power resembling the natural disease  that is to be cured—we
 ought to be particularly and almost exclusively attentive to the
 symptoms that are striking, singular, extraordinary, and peculiar
 (characteristic),* for it is to these latter that similar symptoms,
from among those created by the medicine, ought to correspond, in
 order to constitute it the remedy most suitable to the cure.  On
 the  other hand, the more  vague and general symptoms, such
 as  loss of appetite,  head-ache,  weakness,  disturbed  sleep,
 uncomfortableness, &c,  merit little attention, because almost
 all diseases and medicines  produce something as  general.

  * The most complete  work extant for showing the various effects
 which medicinal agents produce, and their correspondence with the
 various  maladies they are  capable  of removing,  is Jahr's Manual  of
 HomoBopathic Medicine, translated  from  the German, with improve-
 ments and additions, by C. Hering, M. D., Allentown.—Eoitor.

   §  154.   The more this  counter representation, formed from
 the symptoms of the  medicine which appear to  deserve a pre-
 ference, shall contain other symptoms resembling those which
 are extraordinary, peculiar, and characteristic, in the natural
 disease, the greater will be the resemblance on either side, and
 the more homoeopathic, suitable, and specific, will this medicine
 be in the present case. A disease that is of no very long stand-
 ing ordinarily  yields,  without any great degree of suffering,
 to a first dose  of this remedy. 
156
  § 155.  I say without any great degree of suffering, because
when a perfect homoeopathic remedy acts upon the body, it is
nothing more than symptoms analogous to those of the disease
labouring to surmount  and annihilate these latter by usurping
their place.  The remaining symptoms, caused  by the medi-
cinal substance, which  are often numerous, and correspond in
no respect with the existing malady, scarcely ever show them-
selves, and  the  patient improves  from hour to hour.  The
reason of this is, that the dose of any medicine applied homoeo-
pathically being necessarily very feeble, this substance does  not
possess sufficient power to exhibit its  effects non-homoeopa-
thically  in  the  parts of the body that are free from  disease.
But it produces its effects homoeopathically  in  those  parts of
the organism that are  already a prey to the  irritation arising
from the symptoms of the natural disease, and excites  in them
a stronger medicinal affection which  extinguishes and  anni-
hilates the other.

  § 156.  There is no homoeopathic remedy, however suitably
chosen, that does not (especially in a dose not small enough)
produce at least during its action some  slight inconveniences
or fresh symptoms in very sensitive and irritable patients.   In
fact, it is scarcely possible for the symptoms of the medicine to
cover those of the malady with as much precision as a triangle
would do in regard to another which is possessed of angles  and
sides  that are equal to its own.   But these differences, which
are of little importance in a case that terminates in a short time,
are easily effaced by the  energy of the vital  principle, and the
patient does not perceive it himself, unless  he  is excessively
delicate.  The re-establishment of health  goes  forward, not-
withstanding, unless impeded by the influence of heterogeneous
medicinal agents upon the patient, errors of regimen, or excite-
ment of the passions.

   §  157.  But  although  it  is  certain  that  a homoeopathic
remedy, administered in a small dose, quietly annihilates  the
acute  disease which is analogous to it without producing its
other  non-homoeopathic  symptoms—that  is  to  say,  without
exciting new and grievous sufferings; it  often  happens, not-
withstanding, that it produces, at the expiration of one or a  few 
157
hours after ingestion (according to the dose), a state something
less  favourable,  which resembles  the  primitive affection so
closely that the patient supposes the original disease aggravated.
But  in reality  it  is nothing more than  a medicinal disease,
extremely similar to the primitive one, and rather more intense  t
in its nature.

   §  158.   This trifling homeopathic aggravation of the malady
during the first few hours—this happy omen which announces
that the acute disease  will soon be cured, and that it will, for
the most part, yield to  a first dose—is perfectly  as it ought to
be, because the medicinal  disease should  naturally be rather
more intense  than  the  one  it is intended to cure,  if it is to sub-
due  and extinguish the latter; in the same way as a natural  |
disease  can destroy another that resembles it, by exceeding it
in power and  intensity (§ 43—48).

   §  159.   The  smaller the dose of the homoeopathic remedy,
the  slighter the  apparent aggravation of the  disease, and it is
proportionably of shorter duration.

   §  160.   As a homoeopathic dose, however, can scarcely ever
be made  so  small  as not to amend, and, indeed,  perfectly cure
and destroy the undisturbed, natural disease, analogous to it,
and of recent origin (§ 249, note), it may be readily conceived
wherefore  a suitable homoeopathic remedy, if not given  in  the
very smallest  dose, should always occasion, in  the first hour
after its administration, a remarkable homoeopathic aggravation
of this nature.*

  * This preponderance of the symptoms of the remedy over those of the
analogous symptoms of the disease, which looks like an increase of the
natural malady, has also been observed by other physicians when chance
led them to  a homoeopathic medicine.  When the patient afflicted with
itch, after having taken sulphur, complains that the  cutaneous eruption
grows worse, the physician, who is ignorant of the cause, consoles him
by saying that the itch comes out entirely before it can be cured ; but he
is not aware that it  is an exanthema caused by the  sulphur, which
assumes an appearance of aggravated itch.
   Leroy (Med. Instr. for Mothers)  informs us that the viola tricolor
commenced its action by rendering the cutaneous eruption of the  face
worse, of which it subsequently effected the cure ; but he did not know 
158
that the apparent increase of the evil was caused solely by the adminis-
tration of too large a dose of the remedy, which, in this instance, turned
out to  be homeopathic.  Lysons (Medic.  Trans, vol. ii. London, 1772)
says, that the skin diseases which yield with the greatest certainty to
elm bark are those which it increases in the first  instance.  If he had
not, according  to  the  prevailing custom  of the alloeopathic  school,
administered  the bark of the elm in too large doses, but if, as its homoeo-
pathic  character requires, it had  been given in  extremely small doses,
the exanthemata against which he prescribed it would have been cured
without experiencing this increase of intensity, or, at least, they would
have been subjected to but a very slight development.

   § 161.  When I fix the so called homoeopathic aggravation
(or rather the primitive action  of the  homoeopathic remedy
which appears in a slight  degree to increase the symptoms of
the natural  disease) to the first hour or the first few hours, this
delay applies to acute affections  that have  recently intervened.*
But when the remedies whose action lasts for a long time have
to combat a disease  of some duration,  or one  of very long
standing, and consequently  the dose ought  to  continue its
action several days successively, then we may see, during  the
first six, eight, or ten days,  from time to time, some of those
apparent  aggravations of  the  original  malady  which last
during one or several hours, while  the  general amendment
develops itself sensibly in the intervals.  When these few days
are once passed, the amelioration  produced by  the  primitive
effects of the  remedy continues, without interruption, for some
days longer.

  * Although the effects of remedies whose action is of the longest dura-
tion rapidly disappear in acute diseases, they last a considerable time in
chronic affections (arising from psora); and thence it occurs that anti-
psoric remedies do not often produce this slight homoeopathic aggrava-
tion of the symptoms during the first hours, but bring it on later and at
different periods during the first eight or ten days.

   §  162.   The number of medicines whose pure and precise action
is known  being moderate (200), it sometimes  happens, that only
a part of the symptoms of  the disease that is to be cured are to
be found among those of the most  homoeopathic remedy, and,
consequently, this imperfect remedy is obliged to be employed
for want of another that is  less so. 
159
  § 163.  In this case, a perfect cure,  free from all  inconve-
nience on the part of the remedy employed, ought not to be
expected.  During its use, some symptoms are seen to appear
that were not observed before in the disease ; these are acces-
sory symptoms resulting from a medicine that is not  perfectly
homoeopathic with the existing case.  This does not, however,
prevent the remedy from annihilating a great part of the evil
—that is to say, the morbid symptoms which resemble those of
the medicinal disease, and thence arises a tolerable commence-
ment  towards a cure.

  § 164.  The small number of homoeopathic symptoms in a
well-selected homoeopathic  remedy never injures the cure when
it is in a great measure composed of the  extraordinary symptoms
which particularly distinguish  and characterise the disease ;  the
cure then follows without further inconvenience to the patient.

   § 165.  But if among the  symptoms of the remedy not one
is to be found that bears a perfect resemblance to  the striking
and characteristic symptoms  of the malady—if the totality of
them does not correspond with this latter, but in regard to
general symptoms that, are badly developed, (nausea, faintness,
head-ache, &c.)—and among the known medicines there is not
one to be found more  homoeopathic, or which could be selected
for the purpose—the physician ought not to expect an imme-
diate  favourable result from the administration of a remedy so
imperfectly homoeopathic.

   § 166.   This is, however, very rarely the  case, particularly
as the number of medicines whose pure effects have  been dis-
covered is considerably increased of late; and when it  does
occur, the inconveniences that flow from  it  are  diminished
after  another remedy is employed, whose symptoms bear a yet
greater resemblance to those of the malady.

   § 167.   In short, if the application of an imperfect homoeo-
 pathic remedy used, in the first instance, causes any accessory
 symptoms of some importance, the action of the first dose is not
 allowed to exhaust itself in acute diseases ; the altered state of
 the patient is then to be examined, and the remainder of the 
160
primitive  symptoms to be joined to those  which have  been
recently discovered, to form of the whole a  new image of the
disease.

   § 168.  A remedy that is  analogous may then be easily
found among the medicines  that  are known, a single applica-
tion of which will suffice, if not to destroy the disease entirely,
at least to facilitate the cure  in  a great degree.  If this new
remedy is not sufficient to restore the health completely, then
examine what yet remains of the diseased state, and select the
homoeopathic remedy that is  most suitable to the new image
that results from it.   In this manner the physician must con-
tinue  until he attains  his object—that  is to say, until he has
fully restored the health of the patient.

   § 169.  It may easily occur, on examining a disease for the
first time, and also on selecting for the  first time the remedy
that is to  combat it, that the totality of the symptoms of the
disease is found  not  to be sufficiently covered by the morbific
symptoms of a single medicine, and that two remedies dispute
the preference as to eligibility in the present instance, the one
being homoeopathic to  one part of the disease, and the other
still more  so to  another.  It is then by no means advisable,
after using the preferable of the two remedies, to take the other
without examination, because the  medicine given as the inferior
of the  two,  under the  change of circumstances,  may not be
proper for the remaining symptoms ; in which case, it follows
that a suitable homoeopathic remedy should be selected for the
new set of symptoms in its stead.

   § 170.  In the present instance, as well as in  every other
where a change has taken place in the state of the disease, it is
requisite to  seek  out what actually remains of the symptoms,
and select as suitable a remedy as possible to the present state
of the malady, without any reference whatever  to  that one
which, in the commencement, appeared to be the  second best
of the  two remedies that were found suitable.  Should it still
happen, though  it is not  often  the case, that the medicine,
which  at first appeared as  the second best, may now be very 
161
 suitable to the rest of the morbid symptoms, it will then be the
 more worthy of confidence, and should be used in preference.

   §  171.   In  non-venereal  chronic  diseases,  (consequently
 those which  owe their origin to psora,) it is often necessary in
 the cure to employ several remedies one after the other, each of
 which ought to be chosen homoeopathic to the group of symp-
 toms which still exist after the preceding one has exhausted its
 action ; and which may have been applied in a single dose, or
 in several in succession.

   §  172.   The small  number of symptoms in disease gives rise
 to another difficulty in  the curer-a circumstance  which has an
 equal claim to our attention, since by its removal we do away
 with nearly all the obstacles that this system presents; for, if
 we  except the yet incomplete apparatus of  known homoeo-
 pathic remedies, this is the most perfect of all curative methods.

   §  173.   The only  diseases  that  appear to have but  few
 symptoms, and which  are, therefore,  more difficult to cure, are
 those which may be called partial (einseitige), because they have
 but one or two principal and  prominent symptoms which mask
 almost all the  others.   These  are for the most part chronic
 diseases.

   §  174.   Their principal symptom is,  perhaps,  either an
internal malady, (such, for example, as cephalalgia, diarrhoea,
cardialgia, &c., of long standing,) or a more  external injury.
These latter affections, particularly, are called local diseases.

  §  175.  As to partial diseases of the first  species alluded to,
the want of attention on the part of the physician is frequently
the reason that he does not fully trace out the symptoms which
are extant, by whose aid he would be able to form a  more com-
plete outline of the image of the disease.

  § 176.  There are, however, some few diseases which,  not-
withstanding all the care  with which  they may be examined in
the first instance (k 84—98), exhibit only one or two strong
       21 
162
and violent symptoms, while all the others are manifest but in
a slight degree.

  § 177.   A  case  of  this description  very rarely occurs, but
when it does, it will be requisite, in a successful treatment, to
commence by selecting, according to the indication of the few
symptoms that are perceptible, that medicine which appears to
be the most homoeopathic.

  § 178.   It sometimes may happen that this remedy, carefully
selected according to the exigency of the homoeopathic law,
will present the artificial disease, which, by its analogy to the
natural one, is capable of destroying it;  and. this will be the
more easily effected in  proportion as the  symptoms of the
natural disease are prominent, characteristic, and decisive.

  § 179.   But it more frequently happens that it is only in a
certain degree appropriate to the  disease, and that it does not
suit  exactly, because there  was not  a  sufficient  number of
symptoms to direct the choice bf the remedy.

  § 180.   The medicine now  operating upon a  disease to
which  it is only partly analogous, excites accessory symptoms,
as in the case (§ 162 and others) where the choice is imperfect,
in consequence of the limited number of homoeopathic reme-
dies.   It  will then produce several appearances belonging to
the mass  of its own  symptoms.   But these  appearances are
equally symptoms belonging to the disease itself, which the patient
did not till now perceive, or he had rarely felt them,  and which
now do nothing more than  develope  themselves in a greater
degree.

  § 181.  It  will,  perhaps,  be objected  that the  accessory
symptoms, or the new ones appearing in  the disease, ought to
be attributed to the remedy which had  just been administered.
This is indeed the source they  spring from ;* but they are not
less, on that  account, symptoms that  this disease  itself was
capable of producing in  this patient,  and the remedy in its
character of exciting  similar symptoms  only provoked their
manifestation.  In short, the totality  of the symptoms which 
163
then appear, ought to be regarded as belonging to the disease
itself in its present state, and should be looked upon as such in
the treatment.

  * Unless they be occasioned by  an  important  error of  regimen,
inflamed passions, or an impetuous movement in the organism, such as
the establishment or cessation of the menses, conception, child birth, &c.

   §  182.  It is thus  that  the  choice  of the remedy (which
must almost  inevitably  be imperfect, by reason of the few
symptoms that show themselves) performs the office of perfect-
ing the ensemble of the symptoms, and facilitates in this manner
the discovery of a second and more appropriate homoeopathic
remedy.

   §  183.  Unless the recently developed  symptoms should  be
so violent as to call for immediate assistance, (which is rarely
the case, on account  of  the  minuteness of  the homoeopathic
doses, especially in chronic diseases,) it is necessary, when the
first remedy has produced no  favourable results, to write down
again  the  existing  state of the disease,  and select a second
homoeopathic  remedy that  is exactly suitable.  This will  be
the easier performed in proportion as the group of symptoms is
grown more numerous and complete.*

  * A case that is very rare in chronic diseases, but which is sometimes
met with in acute ones, is that, where, notwithstanding the indistinct-
ness of symptoms, the patient feels himself very ill, which may be
ascribed to the  depressed state of the sensibility that  does  not permit
him to have a clear conception of the sufferings and symptoms.  In a
case of this nature, opium (in a high potence) will remove the torpor of
the nervous system, and then the symptoms of the disease develope them-
selves plainly in the re-action of the organism.

   § 184.  A similar  course is  to be  continued after  the full
effects of each dose,  and  the  state of disease that remains
behind is to be noted down, describing the  existing symptoms,
and the image  that results  therefrom will serve to find a new
remedy as homoeopathic as possible.   This  method  must  be
pursued until the cure is accomplished.

   §  185.  Among partial diseases, those which are called local 
164
hold a most important rank.  By these, are meant the changes
and  sufferings experienced by  the  external part of the body.
Until the present  time, it has  been the theory  of the former
schools of medicine that the  external parts only were affected
in such a case, and that the rest of the body did not participate
in the  disease, an absurd theoretical  proposition  that has led to
the most pernicious medical treatment.

  § 186.  The so  called local diseases of recent  origin arising
only from external causes seem more than others to be entitled
to this name.  But the injury must then be very trifling, and
is of no  particular importance; for  if the evils which attack
the body externally are of any importance, the  entire system
sympathises, and fever  declares itself, &c.   The treatment of
these maladies belongs to surgery, so  far as it is necessary to
bring mechanical aid to the suffering parts, in order to remove
and  annihilate mechanical obstacles to the cure, which can
only  be  expected from  the  powers of  the organism itself.
Among these may be ranked, for example, the reduction of
dislocations ; uniting wounds by bandages ;  extracting foreign
substances that have  penetrated the living parts ; opening the
cavity of the  abdomen, either  to remove a  substance that is
burdensome to the system, or to give vent  to  effusions  and
collections of liquids ; placing in  apposition  the extremities of
a fractured bone, and consolidation of the fracture by means of
an appropriate bandage, (fee.  But as, when the injuries occur,
the entire organism always requires  active  dynamic aid to  be
placed in  a condition  to accomplish  the  cure—when,  for
instance, it is necessary to have recourse to internal remedies
to extinguish violent  fever, arising from a severe contusion, a
laceration of the soft  parts—viz.  muscles, tendons, and blood-
vessels—or when it is requisite to combat homoeopathically the
external pain caused by a  burn  or cautery, then commence the
functions of the dynamic physician, and the aid of homoeopathy
becomes  necessary.

  § 187.  But it is very different  with  the changes and mala-
dies  which  occur  on  the  surface of the  body, not originating
from any external violence, or merely  from the  consequences
of some  slight external injury.   These  owe their source to an 
165
internal  affection.  It  is,  therefore, equally absurd  and dan-
gerous to regard these diseases as symptoms that  are  purely
local, and to treat them exclusively, or nearly so,  by  topical
applications, as if they were  surgical cases, in which manner
they have been treated till the present day.

  § 188.  These maladies have  been considered  as  purely
local, and, consequently, received  the appellation of such, be-
cause  they were  looked  upon as affections that were in a
manner attached to the extreme parts in which the organism
took little or no share, as if it was ignorant of their existence.*

      * One of the many pernicious blunders of the old school.

  § 189.  The  slightest  reflection, however,  will  suffice  to
explain why an external  malady  (which  has  not  been occa-
sioned by an  important  external violence) cannot  arise, con-
tinue, or much less grow worse, without some internal cause,
the co-operation of the whole system, the latter, consequently,
being diseased.   It could never manifest  itself if the general
state of health was not immediately concerned, or if all the sen-
sitive and irritable parts of the body did not participate.  Its
production would be impossible, if it  did not result  from some
modification of the entire principle of life, so closely are  the
parts of the body connected  with each  other,  and form so
inseparable a whole in regard to feeling and action.   No erup-
tion of the lips nor whitlow can take  place without  some inter-
nal derangement having  been  previously  and simultaneously
effected.

  § 190.  All medical treatment of external diseases, that have
arisen almost without any violence  being exercised  on  the
exterior of the body, ought, consequently, to have for its object
the annihilation and cure of  the general malady  under which
the organism  suffers, by internal remedies.  There is no other
safe mode of curing them radically.

  § 191.  This is confirmed by  experience, which shows us
that every  energetic  internal  remedy produces, immediately
after  it  has been administered,   important  changes  in  the 
166
 general state of  the  patient,  and particularly in that of the
 external parts  that are affected (which the ordinary school of
 medicine  look  upon  as  isolated), even in the so called local
 affections, when  they are  situated at the extremities of the
 body.  And these changes are of the most  salutary  nature ;
 they consist of  the cure of the  entire body, and remove, at the
 same time, the local evil without the necessity of applying any
 external  remedy, provided the internal  one that is  directed
 against the  whole malady has been well  selected and is per-
 fectly homoeopathic.

   §  192.  The  best  method  of effecting this object is, on
 examining the actual case of disease, to take into consideration
 not only the exact character of the local affection, but,  in addi-
 tion to that, every other change that is perceptible in the state
 of the patient.   All these  symptoms ought to be reunited in
 one  perfect  image, to be able to select a suitable homoeopathic
 remedy from among  the medicines whose morbid symptoms
 are already known.

  § 193.  This remedy  administered alone  internally, and of
 which a single  dose will  suffice, when the disease is of recent
 origin, cures simultaneously the general bodily disease  and the
 local affection.  Such an effect on the part of the remedy ought
 to prove to us that the local evil depends solely upon a  malady
 of the  entire body, and that it  ought to be considered as an in-
 separable  part of the whole, and one of the most  considerable
 and prominent symptoms of the general disease.

  § 194.  It is not proper, either in acute local affections of
 recent  origin, or  in those which have already existed a long
time, to make any topical application whatever to  the diseased
part, not even a substance which would  he  homoeopathic or
specific, if taken internally, or  to administer it simultaneously
with the internal  medicinal agent.  For acute local affections,
such as inflammation, erysipelas, &c, which have not been
produced  by external  injuries violent in  proportion to their
intensity, -but by dynamic or internal causes, generally yield in
a very short time to remedies  capable of exciting  an internal
and  external state similar to the one that  actually exists.*  If 
167
 the disease  is  not wholly removed—if,  notwithstanding the
 regularity of the mode of life of the patient, there still remains
 some local or general trace of it which the vital power is not
 able to  restore to  the  normal state—then  the acute local affec-
 tion was (what happens very frequently)  the product of psora,
 which had till then been latent in the  interior of the organism,
 and which is now on the point of manifesting itself in the form
 of a chronic  disease.
    * For example, aconite, rhus toxicod., belladonna, mercury, ccc.
   § 195.  To perform a radical cure  in these cases, which are
 by no means rare, it is necessary, after a tolerable abatement of
 the acute  state, to direct an  appropriate  antipsoric treatment
 against  the  symptoms which  continue  to exist, together with
 those which  the patient had been subject to previously, (accord-
 ing to the  instructions  given in the work on chronic diseases*).
 An antipsoric  treatment is, besides, requisite in local chronic
 affections that are manifestly not venereal.
   * The second edition of this work is about to be translated, and will be
 published immediately.—Euitor.

   § 196.  It might be supposed that these diseases would be
 cured more promptly, if the remedy known to be homoeopathic
 to the totality of the symptoms was employed not only inter-
 nally, but likewise  externally,  and that  a medicine  applied to
 the spot itself that  is diseased, ought then to produce a more
 rapid change.

   § 197.  But this method should be rejected not only in local
affections which depend upon  the  miasm of psora, but also
in those especially which result from the miasms of syphilis or
sycosis.  For the simultaneous application of a  remedy internally
and externally, in a disease whose principal symptom  is a perma-
nent local evil, brings one serious disadvantage with it—the ex-
ternal  affection* usually disappears  faster than  the internal
malady, which gives rise to an erroneous impression that the
cure is complete, or at least it becomes difficult, and sometimes
impossible, to judge whether  the entire disease has been  de-
stroyed  or not by the internal remedy.
Recent psoric eruption, chancre, sycosis. 
168
  § 198.  The same  motive ought to make us reject the mere
local application of remedies to the external symptoms of chro-
nic miasmatic diseases.  For if we confine ourselves to the sup-
pression of the local  symptoms, an  impenetrable obscurity is
then spread over the treatment, which is necessary to the per-
fect re-establishment of health: the principal  symptom of the
local affection is removed, and there only remain the others
which  are much less  important and certain, and which are
often not sufficiently  characterised to furnish a clear and per-
fect image of the disease.

  § 199.  If the remedy homoeopathic to the disease was not
yet discovered* when  the  local  symptom was destroyed  by
cauterization, excision, or desiccatives, the case becomes still
more embarrassing, on account of the uncertainty and incon-
stancy of the symptoms that  remain.   And this difficulty is
inevitable, because the external symptom  which would have
been the  best  guide in the  choice of  a remedy, and have
pointed out the  proper time of using it internally, is removed
from our observation.

  * As was the case before my time with regard to anti-sycosic and anti-
psoric remedies.

  § 200.  If this symptom still existed, it might have  led to the
discovery of  the homoeopathic remedy  suitable to  the entire
malady ; this remedy  once  discovered, the  continued existence
of the local, affection would show that  the cure was  not yet
perfected, while its disappearance would prove that the evil had
been extirpated to the very root, and the  cure absolute, an ad-
vantage that cannot be too highly appreciated.

  § 201.  It  is  evident that the vital power, charged with a
chronic disease  which it cannot subdue by its own  energy,
does not adopt the measure of exciting a local  affection on any
external  part whatever,  but for  the purpose  of allaying (by
abandoning  to its power those  organs  whose integrity is not
absolutely necessary to existence) an internal disease which
threatens to  destroy the essential springs of life.  Its object is,
in a manner,  to transport the malady from one spot to another, 
169
and substitute an external evil in the place of one that is inter-
nal.  In this way the local affection silences, for a while,  the
interna]  malady,  but without  being able either  to cure or
diminish it in a great degree.*  The local malady, however, is
never any thing more than a part of the general disease, but it
is a part that the vital power has (einseitigt) greatly magnified,
and which  she has carried  back to the surface of  the body
where there is less danger,  in  order to diminish the internal
affection in an equal degree.   But this latter is not the less
cured on that  account: on  the contrary, it  makes a gradual
progress, so that  the organism is likewise compelled to enlarge
and aggravate the local  symptom, in order to replace it to a
certain  extent,  and procure  for it partial relief.   Thus,  old
ulcers in the legs grow large  so long as the  internal psora is
not cured, and chancres increase in size as long as the internal
syphilis remains  without cure,  just as the internal  disease of
the whole body grows and enlarges of itself.

  * The issues of the old school produce something that is analogous.
These ulcers, created by art on  the external parts, may, though for a
very short time, allay several internal chronic diseases, but they  can
never cure them; on the other hand, they weaken and destroy the health
far more than the instinctive vital power does, by the most of its metas-
tases.

  § 202.  If the physician  who has imbibed the precepts of
the ordinary school destroys the local malady by  an external
remedy, thinking by these  means to cure the  disease itself,
nature replaces this affection by increasing the internal suffer-
ings, and rousing all the other symptoms that already existed
with the local malady, and which appear to have been  till that
time  in a latent state.   It  is,  therefore, erroneous that  the
external remedies have (as usually asserted) then driven back
the local malady into the body, or that they have  thrown it
upon  the nerves.

  § 203.  Every external treatment of  a local symptom whose
aim is  to extinguish it on the surface of the  body without
curing  the internal miasmatic  disease—such, for example, as
that of  destroying a psoric eruption on the skin by  means of
ointments, healing  up a chancre by the use of caustic, destroy-
       22 
170
 ing  the granulations  of sycosis by ligature, excision,  or  the
 application  of a hot iron—is  not  only useless but injurious.
 This pernicious method, in such  general use  at the present
 day,  is the chief source of the  innumerable chronic diseases
 (with or without names) that oppress the human race.   This
 is the most criminal practice physicians  can adopt, and it  has
 notwithstanding been very generally practised till the present
 time, and taught, ex cathedra, as the only one.*

  * For all the medicines which are directed to be given inwardly during
 the local treatment, serve only to aggravate the evil, since they possess
 no specific power to remove the entire disease, but assault and  weaken
 the organism, and, in addition, inflict on it other chronic medicinal dis-
 eases.

   § 204.  If we except all chronic maladies  which  depend
 upon a mode of living habitually unhealthy, as well  as those
 innumerable factitious diseases (v. §. 74) which  arise from  the
 senseless and protracted, the assaulting and ruinous treatment,
 even of slight diseases, by alloeopathic physicians, then all the
 remainder, without exception,  are occasioned by the develope-
 ment of these three chronic  miasms, viz., internal  syphilis,
 internal sycosis, but especially, and in an infinitely greater pro-
 portion, internal psora.   Each of  these  is already in posses-
 sion of the entire organism,  and  has penetrated it in all its
 parts, before the respective primary representative and local
 symptom  makes its  appearance, which prevents  the  bursting
 forth of its corresponding miasm in another form, and is mani-
 fested  in  psora by a peculiar eruption, in syphilis by chancre
 or bubo,  and  in  sycosis  by  condylomata.   Either  of these
 chronic  miasms being deprived of its local symptoms, will,
 sooner or later, under the influence of natural causes, become
 developed, burst forth, and multiply the incredible multitude of
 chronic diseases which  for ages has afflicted  the  human race.
 These diseases never would have  existed in such abundance,
 had physicians strenuously endeavoured to effect a radical cure
of these  three  miasms, and  to extinguish them from  the
 organism, by  means of the internal  employment of homoeo-
pathic remedies adapted to each, without treating the  external
symptoms by topical applications. 
171
   § 205.   The homoeopathic physician never treats the primi-
tive symptoms of chronic miasms, nor the secondary evils that
result  from their developement, by local  remedies acting  in a
dynamic1  or mechanical  manner.   But  as this  was  not the
method adopted  by his predecessors, and as he generally finds
the primitive symptoms2 already  effaced  from the exterior, he
has, for the most part, to treat secondary symptoms, evils pro-
voked  by  the developement of these inherent miasms, and more
frequently  chronic diseases that are the results of  internal
psora.   On  this  head, I  refer  the  reader to  my  treatise on
chronic diseases, in which I have pointed out the system that
is to be pursued in as precise a  manner as it was  possible for a
single  individual to do after many years of experience, obser-
vation, and reflection.

  1 Consequently, I cannot, for example, advise the  local destruction of
cancer  in the lip or face (the result of psora strongly developed?) by the
arsenical ointment of frere Come ; not only because this treatment is
extremely  painful, and frequently fails, but more particularly because
such a  dynamic remedy, although it may locally cleanse  the body of the
cancerous  ulcer, does not in the slightest degree  diminish the  psora,
which  is the original disease, so that the preservative  vital  power is
forced to carry back the focus of the great internal disease upon a more
essential part (as it happens in every case of metastasis), and thus occa-
sions blindness, deafness, madness, suffocative asthma, dropsy,  apoplexy,
&c.  But arsenic ointment does not even reach so far as to destroy the
local ulceration, except where the latter is of no very great extent, and
the vital power retains great energy; but even  in such a  state  of things,
it is still possible to cure the original disease completely.  The extirpa-
tion of cancer in the face or breast, or  that of an encysted tumour,  abso-
lutely produces the same result.  The operation is followed by a state
still more grievous, or at least the life  of the patient is shortened.   This
in innumerable  instances has been the result; but still the old school,
in its blindness, continues to produce in every new case the  same
calamity.
  2 Psoric  eruption, chancre (bubones), sycosis.

   § 206.   Previous  to commencing the cure of a chronic dis-
ease, it is necessary to enquire with  the greatest care*  whether
the  patient has  been affected with the  venereal  disease (or
gonorrhea sycosica);  for where this is the case,  the treatment
ought to  be specially and solely directed towards  these objects
when  no other  symptoms but  those of  syphilis or sycosis are 
172
present, a  circumstance  that  very  rarely  occurs in  modern
times.   It  is equally requisite, in the cure of internal psora, to
enquire if  an infection of this nature has taken place, because
in that case there is a complication of those two diseases, as
there always is, when the symptoms  of  psora are not pure.
Generally, when the  physician  thinks he  has an old case of
venereal disease  before  him, it is chiefly a complication of
syphilis and psora that  offers itself to  his  view, the internal
psora being the most  frequent fundamental cause of chronic dis-
eases, whatever names they may  bear, and which,  by alloeo-
pathic unskilfulness,  has been,  in addition, frequently marred
and enormously heightened and disfigured.

  * In making enquiries of this nature,  the physician must not  allow
himself to be imposed on either by the assertions of the patients or those
of their parents, who, even in the most inveterate cases  of chronic dis-
eases, assign for their  cause a cold  caught many years previous,  a
former fright, grief, witchcraft, &c.  These causes are much too  slight
to produce  a chronic disease  in a healthy body, or to keep  it up for  a
period of long duration, and render it worse from year to year, as is the
case with all chronic diseases arising from the  developement of psora.
Far more important causes than these must have presided at the birth of
a severe chronic disease, and those which have just been  enumerated
could do nothing more than call forth a chronic miasm from  its state of
lethargy.

   §  207.   The preceding examination  being  accomplished,
then it is requisite  for the homoeopathic physician to enquire
what was the alloeopathic  treatment adopted  during  the
chronic disease—what powerful medicines especially and fre-
quently were  employed, the  mineral  waters used,  and  their
effects.   This  information is  necessary, in order  that he may
conceive,  in some degree, the  deviation  from  the  primitive
state, and, if possible, partially correct these artificial changes,
or, at all events, that he may avoid the medicines already mis-
applied.

   § 208.   The next  step is to learn the age of the patient, his
mode of  life,  regimen,  occupation, domestic situation, social
connections, &c.  He is  to examine whether these various cir-
cumstances  contribute  to increase the disease,  and to  what
extent they may  be  favourable or  unfavourable to  the treat- 
173
ment.   He  must  likewise endeavour  to  learn whether the
patient's state of mind is any obstacle to the cure, and whether
it be necessary to modify, favour, or direct it.


  § 209.   It is  not  till  after  repeated enquiries of this nature
that the physician should endeavour to trace out, according to
the directions already given, as perfect an image of the disease
as possible, to enable him to distinguish the most prominent
and characteristic of the  symptoms by which he is to  choose
the first anti-psoric or other remedy, at the commencement of
the treatment,  observing,  as a  guide, the  greatest  possible
analogy with the  symptoms, <fec.

  § 210.   Almost all those which  I before designated by the
name of partial  (einseitige) diseases belong  to psora, and seem,
on that account, more difficult to  cure, because all  their other
symptoms disappear before that one great prevailing symptom.
To these belong the so called diseases of the mind  and temper.
These  affections,  however, do not form a distinct and wholly
separate class from  the others, for  the  state of the mind and
temper varies in  all  other so  called bodily  diseases,* and it
ought  to be comprised  as one of the  principal symptoms, of
which it is important  to  note  the whole,  in order to trace a
faithful image of  the disease, and to be able to combat it with
success, homoeopathically.

  * How often do we not meet with patients who, though they have
been a prey  for many years to painful  diseases, nevertheless preserve a
gentle and peaceful  disposition, so much  so as to inspire us with com-
passion  and  respect?   But when  the disease is overcome, which is
often the case, by the homoeopathic mode of treatment, we sometimes
see  the  most  frightful changes of disposition ensue, and ingratitude,
obduracy, refined  malice, revolting caprices, which  were the attributes
of the patient before he became diseased, again make their appearance.
Sometimes a man who is patient while in the enjoyment of health, be-
comes passionate,  violent, capricious, and unbearable, or impatient and
despairing, when he is ill, or the  formerly chaste and modest  are now
become  lascivious and shameless.  It is frequently the case that a sen-
sible man becomes stupid in sickness, whereas, on the contrary, a weak
mind is rendered stronger, and a man of  a slow temperament  becomes
full of presence of mind and resolution. 
174
   §  211.   This extends so  far  that  the  moral state of the
 patient is often that which is most decisive in the choice of the
 homoeopathic remedy ;  for this is a symptom of the most pre-
 cise character, and one  that, among the mass of symptoms, by
 no means  can escape the  notice of a physician accustomed to
 make precise observations.

   §  212.   The creator  of medicinal agents has also been sin-
 gularly attentive to this principal element of all diseases—the
 changes in the state of mind and disposition : for there is not a
 single  operative medicine that does not effect a notable change
 in the temper and manner of thinking of a healthy individual
to whom it is administered, and each medicinal  substance pro-
 duces a different modification.

   §  213.   No cure, then, can ever be  performed according to
 nature—that  is to say, in a homoeopathic  manner—without
 paying attention, at the same time, in every disease, and even
 in those which are acute, to the change that has taken place in
 the mind and disposition,  and selecting a remedy capable in
 itself of producing not  only similar  symptoms to those of the
 malady, but also a similar disposition and state of mind.*

  * Aconite seldom or ever effects a rapid and permanent cure when the
 temper of the patient is quiet and even; or the nux-vomica, when  the
 disposition is mild and phlegmatic; or  Pulsatilla, when  it is lively,
 serene, or obstinate ; or ignatia, when the mind is unchangeable and
 little susceptible of either fear or grief.

   §  214.   What  I have to say regarding  the treatment of
 mental  diseases may be comprised in  a  few words, for they
 cannot be cured in  a different manner from other  diseases—
 that is to say, it is necessary to oppose to  them  a remedy pos-
 sessing a morbific power as similar as possible  to the  disease
 itself in the effect which it  produces upon  the mind and body
 of persons in health.

   §  215.   Almost all affections of the mind and  disposition are
 nothing more than diseases of the body, in which the changes
 of the moral  faculties are  (more or less rapidly) become pre-
 dominant over all the other symptoms, which are diminished; 
175
they finish by assuming the character of a partial disease and
almost of a local affection.

  § 216.  In the so called bodily diseases which are dangerous,
such as suppuration of the lungs, or that of any other essential
viscera, or another acute disease, viz. in childbed, &c, where
the intensity of the moral symptom increases rapidly, the dis-
ease turns to insanity, melancholy, or madness, which removes
the danger  arising from the bodily symptoms.  The  latter
improve so  far as almost to be restored to a healthy state,  or
rather they  are diminished in such a degree as to be no longer
perceptible but to the eye of the observer gifted with penetration
and perseverance.   In this manner they degenerate into a par-
tial  (einseitige) disease, even as if local, in which the moral
symptom, very slight  in the  first instance, assumes so great a
preponderance that it becomes the most prominent of  all—sub-
stitutes itself in a great degree for the others, and subdues their
virulence by  acting on them  as a palliative.  In short,  the
disease of the bodily organs, which are grosser in their nature,
has been transported to the almost spiritual organs of the mind,
which no anatomist ever could or  will  be able  to  reach with
his scalpel.

   §  217.  In affections of this kind, it is requisite to proceed
with particular care in searching for the entire signs both in
regard to the bodily symptoms  and more especially that of the
principal  and characteristic  symptom—the state of the mind
and disposition.  By these means alone can we succeed in dis-
covering, among the number of medicines whose pure effects
are known,  a remedy that has  the  power of extinguishing the
entire evil at once ; for it is necessary that, among the number
of  the symptoms peculiar to this remedy, there should be some
which resemble as closely  as possible not  only the bodily
symptoms4 of the disease, but also its moral ones  in particular.

   $ 218.   To obtain possession of this totality of the symptoms,
it is requisite, in  the  first place, to describe with precision all
those which the disease exhibited previous to the  moment
when, by the preponderance of the moral symptoms, it changed
to an affection of the mind and disposition.  This information
will be furnished by the persons who are about the patient. 
176
   §  219.   By comparing these previous symptoms of the bodily
disease with the traces of those that still remain, but which are
nearly effaced, (and perceptible at lucid intervals, or when the
mental affection undergoes  a transitory diminution,) we  may
satisfy ourselves that although they were concealed,  still they
never ceased to exist.

   § 220.   If we add to all this, the state of mind and disposi-
tion  which the persons around  the patient, and the physician
himself, has observed with the greatest care, we  have  then
arrived at the  perfect image of the malady, and may proceed to
look for the homoeopathic remedy that is to cure it—that is to
say,  (if the mental affection has already existed a long time,)
for the anti-psoric remedy,  which has  the power of exciting
similar symptoms, and principally an analogous disorder in the
moral faculties.

   § 221.   If, however, the ordinary calm and tranquil state of
the patient has been suddenly changed by the influence of fear,
grief, spirituous  liquors, <fcc, to one of madness or  furor, thus
presenting the character of an  acute disease, although the
affection  is almost always  the  result  of internal psora, like a
raging flame bursting forth from it, yet the physician cannot
attempt to combat  it immediately by the use of  anti-psoric
remedies.   It is necessary first to oppose to it other medicines—
such, for example,  as aconite, belladonna, stramonium, hyoscia-
mus. mercury, &c, in highly developed, minute doses—in order
to allay it sufficiently to  bring back the psora to  its former
latent condition, which gives the patient  the appearance  of
being cured.

   § 222.   But a patient who has thus  been freed from  an acute
disease of the mind or disposition by the use of non-anti-psoric
remedies can never be regarded as cured.  Far from it; and it
is necessary to lose no time in placing him under a prolonged
anti-psoric treatment to deliver him of the  chronic miasm of
psora, which, it is true, has again become latent, but is not less
ready on that account to break out again.*   In short, there is
no fear of another  attack  similar to that which has  been 
177
arrested, provided the patient does not depart from the regimen
that has been prescribed for him.
  * It is a very rare case that mental alienation of long standing ceases
spontaneously, (since the internal malady recedes upon the grosser cor-
poreal organs.)  These are the few cases in which a patient, after having
been the inmate of a mad-house, is  discharged  as  apparently cured.
Every institution for the insane has hitherto been filled to excess, so that
the multitude of others waiting for admission have scarcely ever found a
place, if vacancies did not occur in the house by the decease of patients.
Not one among them is really and permanently cured !  A  striking
evidence this, among many others, of  the complete nullity of the perni-
cious  treatment hitherto pursued,  which alloeopathic ostentation has
ridiculously honoured with the title of the rational art of healing.  On
the other hand, how often have these unfortunate beings, by  means of a
treatment purely homoeopathic,  been restored to the possession of their
mental and bodily health, and returned to their gratified connections and
the world.

   § 223.  But where the anti-psoric treatment is discontinued,
it is almost certain that a much slighter cause than that which
excited the first appearance of insanity will suffice to bring on
a  fresh  and more permanent  attack of it, during which psora
developes itself in a perfect manner, and it will then turn to a
periodical  or  permanent mental alienation, which  can  with
difficulty be cured by anti-psorics.

   § 221.  In a case where the mental disease is not yet com-
pletely formed, and where  it  is doubtful  whether  it really
results from a bodily affection, or if  it is  not  rather  the effects
of  bad  education, evil habits, corrupted morals, a neglected
mind, superstition, or ignorance, the truth will be readily dis-
covered by acting as follows.   The  patient  is to be  addressed
in a tone of friendly exhortation,  while motives of consolation,
serious remonstrances, and solid arguments, are to be urged on
the occasion : if the disorder  of the mind does  not proceed
from a bodily disease, it will readily yield to such  means ;  but
if  the contrary is  the case,  the malady  rapidly grows  worse,
the melancholic becomes still more grave, downcast, and incon-
solable, the wicked maniac more  outrageous, and the unmean-
ing prattler more foolish.*
  * It seems as though the mind  were  sensible  of the truth of these
representations, and acted upon the body as if it would restore the lost
       23 
178
harmony, but that the latter re-acts,  by means of a disease,  upon  the
organs of the  mind and  disposition,  and  augments the derangement
which already exists, by throwing back on them its own peculiar suffer-
ings.

  § 225.  But, as we have just witnessed, there are likewise a
few mental  diseases that do not owe their  origin solely to a
bodily disease, but which, on the contrary, with a slight indis-
position, have been produced by  moral affections, such as con-
tinued grief, anger, injured feelings, or great and repeated occa-
sions of fear and alarm.  In  the course of time,  these latter
have an influence over the  health of the body, and often com-
promise it in a high degree.

  § 226.  It is merely in mental diseases, thus engendered and
kept up by the disposition itself, that  moral  remedies are to be
relied on, and that only while they are still recent, and have  not
yet made any great inroad upon the physical state of the organism.
In this case, it is possible that treating the patient with a show
of confidence, bestowing on him friendly exhortations  and sen-
sible advice, and sometimes practising on him a deception that
is disguised  with art, will soon restore the health of the mind,
and then, with  the aid of a  suitable regimen,  the body also
may apparently be brought back  to its normal condition.

  j 227.  But  these  maladies are likewise the results of a
psoric miasm that was not yet ready to develope itself in a per-
fect manner, and prudence requires that the patient should be
submitted to a radical anti-psoric cure, to prevent a relapse
(which  too often occurs) of the same mental  affection.

  § 228.  In mental diseases that are produced by an  affection
of the body, whose cure can  alone be effected by a homoeopa-
thic anti-psoric remedy, aided by a careful and regular mode of
life, it is also proper to join to this treatment a certain regimen
for the  government of the  mind.  In this respect  it is neces-
sary that the physician, and  those about  the patient, should
scrupulously observe that line of conduct towards him that  has
been judged suitable.   To the  furious maniac, we are to oppose
tranquillity  and unshaken firmness  free  from fear ;  to  the 
179
patient who vents  his sufferings in  grief and lamentation,
silent pity that is expressed by the countenance and gestures ;
to senseless prattle, a silence not wholly inattentive; to disgust-
ing  and detestable demeanour and similar  discourse, entire
inattention.  What  regards the  injury and damage that  a
maniac may commit, we are only to anticipate  and  prevent it
without ever expressing a word  of reproach to him; every
thing ought to be  so  ordered, that punishments and the inflic-
tion  of bodily sufferings may be dispensed with.* And this can
be effected without any great difficulty, since  in administering
the medicine (the only point where the use of coercive measures
would be justifiable) the dose in the homoeopathic treatment is
so small that the medicinal substance never offends the taste,
and  the patient can be made to swallow it in his drink without
ever perceiving it.

  * It is surprising to witness the hard-hearted and imprudent treatment
adopted in several mad-houses, not only in  England, but also in Ger-
many, by physicians who, ignorant of the only true  method of curing
mental disease by  the aid of  homoeopathic  (anti-psoric) remedies, do
nothing more than beat  and torture the unfortunate beings who are so
worthy of compassion. By this revolting mode of treatment, they lower
themselves beneath the rank of the common jailer in the houses of cor-
rection ; for it is in virtue of his office, and upon criminals only, that  the
latter exercises his cruelty, while  the physician, either too  ignorant or
indolent to go in search of a suitable method of treatment, only appears
to exert his tyranny upon the innocent patient through  spite, because he
is not able to cure him.

   §  229.  On  the other hand, contradiction, zealous remon-
strance,  violence,  and  reproaches,  are as  inapplicable and
injurious in the treatment of mental  disease as are  indecision
and  timidity.   But  mockery, in  particular,  and  deception,
which the  maniac  is not slow in perceiving, only irritate and
provoke him.  The physician, and those who  guard the patient,
ought  always to appear as if they believed him to be possessed of
reason.  It  is likewise necessary  to  remove from his view all
external objects that could  disturb or afflict him.   There is on
relief  or distraction for the clouded  mind—no salutary recrea-
tion—no means of instruction  or  consolation either in books,
conversation, or otherwise, for the soul that languishes in the
prison of a diseased body—nothing can procure him repose but 
180
 the cure of his bodily sufferings, and he is equally a stranger to
 comfort and tranquillity until reason is restored.

   §  230.   If the  anti-psoric  remedy that is to be used in any
 given case of mental affection, of which there are an endless
 variety of cases, be perfectly honioeopathic to the true image of
 the  disease,  (which is  easily discovered when  the  number of
 known medicines is sufficiently great that the principal symp-
 tom, viz. the moral state of the patient, is  strongly developed,)
 then the smallest dose often suffices to produce, in a short time,
 a  very decided   amelioration,  which  could not  have  been
 obtained by all the other (alloeopathic) remedies administered
 in large doses, and lavished on the patient till he  was near
 death.  I  can  even affirm,  after  long experience,  that  the
 superiority of homoeopathy over every  other  curative method
 whatever was never more manifest  than in mental diseases of
 long standing, which owed their origin to  bodily affections or
 which were developed simultaneously.

   § 231.   There is yet another class of diseases that merits our
 particular attention.  These are the intermittent  diseases, such
 as return at stated periods like the innumerable intermittent
 fevers, and the non-febrile affections assuming the same form,
 and  also those which in  certain  morbid  states alternate with
 others at indefinite intervals.

   § 232.   These  latter (alternating) species  are likewise  in
 great variety ;* but they  all belong  to the number of chronic
diseases.  The greater part of them result from a developement
of psora, sometimes, but  rarely, complicated with a  syphilitic
 miasm.   This is  the  reason that  they are cured in the first
 instance by anti-psoric medicines, and  in  the  second by anti-
 psorics, alternating with anti-syphilitics, as  I have stated in my
 Treatise on Chronic Diseases.

  * It is possible for  two or three different states  to alternate with each
 other. For  example, in a case that regards the  alternation  of two dif-
 ferent states, it can happen that certain pains may be produced in  the
 lower extremities as  soon as  ophthalmia disappears, and the  latter may
 return again immediately when the pains have ceased—or that spasms
 and convulsions may immediately succeed some other affection, either of 
181
the entire body  or one of its parts.  But it is also possible, in the case
of a triple alliance of alternative states in a quotidian complaint, that an
apparent superabundance of health, an exaltation of the faculties of the
mind and body, (such as unusual gaiety, excessive vivacity, an exagge-
rated feeling of comfort, immoderate appetite, &c.) may be abruptly suc-
ceeded by a downcast and melancholy humour, an insupportable ten-
dency to  hypochondriasis, and a derangement of several of  the vital
functions (digestion, sleep, &c): and this  second may  make room in a
less sudden manner to the feeling of indisposition which the patient was
subject to in  ordinary times.  Sometimes  there is no longer any trace
whatever of the anterior state when the new one has established itself.
Sometimes there are vestiges of it still remaining.  In certain cases, the
morbid states that succeed each other are in their nature directly opposite
—as, for example, melancholy and mirthful insanity, or furor, alternating
periodically.

   § 233.   The typical intermittens are those wherein a morbid
state, resembling  that which previously existed, re-appears at
the expiration of a certain  interval of apparent  recovery, and
vanishes again after  having lasted for an equal period of time.
This phenomenon  not only occurs  in the  great variety  of
intermittent fevers, but likewise in diseases that are apparently
without fever, which  appear and disappear at regular periods.

   § 234.   Those  morbid  states,  apparently  without  fever,
which assume a particular type—that is to say,  which return
at fixed periods in  the same patient (they do not manifest them-
selves, in general, either  sporadically  or  epidemically)—all
belong to the  class of chronic diseases.  The greater number
of them depend on  a simple psoric affection,  seldom  compli-
cated with syphilis, and they are combated successfully by the
same treatment.   It is, however, sometimes  necessary  to have
recourse to a very small dose of extenuated solution of cinchona,
for the purpose of completely'extinguishing  their intermittent
forrii.

   § 235.  With respect  to intermittent fevers*  that manifest
themselves  sporadically or  epidemically (not the endemics of
marshy districts), we often find  that each of their attacks  or
paroxysms is likewise composed of two contrary morbid states
of cold and heat, or heat and cold ; but most frequently it con-
sists of three—cold, heat, and perspiration.   For  this reason, it 
182
is,  therefore,  necessary  that the   remedy employed  against
them, which is to be selected from  the medicines hitherto tried,
commonly from the non-anti-psorics, shall likewise (as the surest
means) be able to excite in  healthy persons  two (or all three)
of the morbid stages that are similar, or, at least, it shall have
the faculty  of exciting, with all its accessory symptoms,  the
strongest and most prominent of these two or  three consecutive
stages, viz.  either that of chill, with its accessory symptoms, or
of heat, with the  symptoms accompanying it,  or of perspiration,
with  its  attendant  complaints,  according  as the  one or the
other stage may be the strongest and most distinguished ; yet
the state of the patient, during  the apyrexia, especially, must
indicate  the choice  of  the  most  appropriate   homoeopathic
remedy.

  * Till the present time, pathology has only been acquainted  Avith one
single intermittent fever, which has been called ague.   It admits of no
other difference than the interval which exists between the paroxysms ;
and upon this are founded  the particular denominations, quotidian,
tertian, quartan, &c.  But, besides the variety  which they present  in
regard to  the periods of their return, the intermittent fevers exhibit yet
other  changes  that are much more important. Among  these fevers
there  are  many which cannot be  denominated ague, because their
attacks consist solely of heat; others are characterised by cold only, suc-
ceeded or  not by perspiration ; while  yet  others freeze the body of the
patient,  and  inspire him, notwithstanding, with a sensation of heat,  or
even create in him a feeling of cold, although his body seems very warm
to the touch ; in many, one of the paroxysms is confined to shivering  or
cold, which is immediately  succeeded  by a comfortable sensation, and
that which comes after it consists of heat followed by perspiration  or
not.  In one case, it is  heat that manifests itself first, and cold succeeds;
in another, both the cold and heat give place to apyrexia, while the next
paroxysm, which sometimes does not occur before an interval of several
hours, consists merely  of perspiration ;  in certain cases,  no trace of per-
spiration is perceptible; while in others the attack is composed solely  of
perspiration,  without either heat or  cold, or of perspiration that flows
during the heat alone.  There exist, likewise, innumerable differences
relative  to the accessory symptoms, the particular kind of head-ache, the
bad taste in the mouth, the stomach sickness, the vomiting, the diarrhoea
the absence  or degree of thirst, the kind of pains felt in the body and
limbs, sleep, delirium,  changes of the temper, spasms, &c, which mani-
fest themselves before, during, or after the cold, hot, or sweating stages
without taking into the account a multitude of other deviations.  These
are assuredly intermittent fevers that are very different from one another, 
183
each of which demands naturally that mode of homoeopathic treatment
that is appropriate to it individually.  It must be confessed, it is true,
that they may almost all be suppressed (a case that so frequently occurs)
by large and  enormous doses of cinchona or quinine—that is to say, cin-
chona prevents their periodical return, and destroys the type.  But when
this remedy is employed in intermittent fevers where it is inappropriate,
(as is the  case with all epidemic intermittents which pass over whole
countries, and even mountains,) the patient is not at all cured, because
the character of the disease is destroyed; he is still indisposed, and often
much more so than he was before;  he  suffers  from  a peculiar chronic
bark complaint, often incurable, and yet this is what physicians term a
cure.

   §  236.   The best, most appropriate, and serviceable  method
in these diseases,  is to administer the remedy immediately, or
very shortly after the termination of the paroxysm, as  soon as
the patient  has, in some measure, recovered from it.   Adminis-
tered in this  manner, it has sufficient time to produce in  the
organism  all  its  various  effects  to  restore health without
violence  or commotion ; whereas, if taken immediately before
the paroxysm, (even though it were homoeopathic or specific in
the highest degree,) its effect would coincide with  the renewal
of the natural disease,  and excite such a strife in the organism,
so powerful a reaction, that the patient would  lose  at least a
great portion of his strength,  and even  life would be endan-
gered.*   But when the medicine is  administered immediately
after the termination of the paroxysm, and before the  next fit
has prepared itself, even at a distance, to appear, the organism
is in the  best  possible condition  to allow itself to  be gently
modified  by the remedy, and by these means return to a state
of health.

   * There are  proofs of this, unfortunately, in  the too frequent cases
where a moderate alloeopathic dose of opium, administered to the patient
during the cold stage of the fever, has quickly deprived him of life.

   § 237.    If the period of the apyrexia be  of short duration, as
is the case in some very violent fevers, or if it be disturbed by
symptoms which  belong to the preceding  paroxysm, then it is
necessary to  administer the homoeopathic remedy as  soon as
the perspiration or other symptoms, pointing  out  the termina-
tion of the fit, begin to diminish. 
1S4
   §  238.   When a single dose of the appropriate remedy has
destroyed several paroxysms, and manifestly restored health,
and, notwithstanding  which, indications of a fresh  attack are
seen  some  time  after,  then only  can and ought  the  same
remedy to be repeated, provided the totality of the symptoms is
still  the same.  But  this return of the same  fever, after an
interval of health, is not possible, except when the cause which
excited  the malady,  in  the first  instance, still  exercises its
influence upon the convalescent, as occurs in marshy countries.
In such a case, a permanent cure is  seldom  effected but by
removing the patient from  this  exciting cause, and  advising
him  to  go and reside in a mountainous district, if that which
attacked him was a marsh intermittent fever.

  § 239.  As almost every medicine, in its simple action, pro-
duces a peculiar  fever, and even a  species of  intermittent,
which differs from all those excited by other medicines, conse-
quently the immense number of medicinal substances presents
the means of combating all natural intermittent fevers homoeo-
pathically.  Some efficacious remedies against a multitude of
these affections, have  already been discovered in the few medi-
cines that have  been tried, till  the present time, on healthy
individuals.

  § 240.  When  a remedy is found  to be homoeopathic or
specific  in a reigning epidemy of intermittent fevers, and  there
is, notwithstanding, now and then, a patient whom it does not
cure  in a perfect  manner,  and no influence of a marshy
country opposes its operation, then the obstacle generally arises
from the psoric miasm, and, consequently, anti-psoric medicines
ought to be employed until health is perfectly restored.

  § 241.  Epidemical intermittent  fevers,  in  places where
none  are endemic,  have the nature of chronic  diseases,  com-
posed  of   individual,  acute  paroxysms.   Each  particular
epidemic has a peculiar character, per se, that is shared in
common by every patient affected by it, and which, when it is
discovered in the totality of symptoms common to all, indicates
the suitable homoeopathic remedy (specific) for  all the cases;
and this remedy is almost universally effectual in patients who 
185
had enjoyed  tolerable health before the onset of the epidemic,
that is, who suffered under no  chronic malady from developed
psora.

   § 242.  If, however,  in  such an epidemic intermittent, the
first paroxysms have passed over  uncured, or if the patient's
strength had been reduced  by improper  alloeopathic treatment.
then the internal psoric miasm (though slumbering, yet unfor
tunately existing in so many persons), developes itself, assumes
here  the intermittent type, and, in appearance,  continues to
play the part of the intermittent fever itself, so that the medicine
(rarely an anti-psoric) which would have been beneficial in the
incipient paroxysms, is  now  no longer  suitable or capable of
affording relief.   The disease at present  to be combated  has
degenerated into a psoric intermittent, which  is generally over-
come  by means of a minute dose, seldom repeated, of sulphur
and sulphuretum calcis, of the highest developements.

   § 243.  Those frequently very malignant intermittent fevers
which attack  an individual  here  and  there,  not  inhabiting
marshy regions, must  in  the commencement be  treated as
acute diseases (to which  they bear some resemblance, as regards
their  psoric origin), by selecting a homoeopathic remedy, for
the special case, from  the class of the other proven (non-anti-
psoric) medicines, which is to be continued for some days with
the view of affording the greatest possible relief.   But if the
recovery should be lingering,  it must be seen that psora is now
on the point of developement, and that a radical cure cannot be
effected  without anti-psoric  remedies.

   § 244.  The  endemic intermittent fevers of marshy districts
and countries  subject to  inundations  are a source of much
embarrassment to physicians of the prevailing school of medi-
cine.  A healthy man may, however, accustom himself in his
youth to  the influence of a country  that  is covered  with
morasses, and live there in  perfect health,  provided he confines
himself  to a regular mode  of life, and is not assailed by want,
fatigue,  or destructive  passions.  The endemic intermittent
fevers will at farthest attack him on his first arrival in  the
country: but one or two of the smallest doses of a solution of
      24 
186
cinchona, attenuated in a very high degree, suffice to  deliver
him from it  promptly, if, in other respects, he does not depart
from a strict regimen.  But  when a man  who  takes sufficient
bodily exercise, and who pursues a course every way suited to
his mind and body, does not cure of a marsh intermittent fever
by the influence of this single remedy, we may be certain that
there exists within his body a psoric affection, which is on the
eve of developing itself, and that the intermittent fever will not
yield to any other than an anti-psoric treatment.*  It sometimes
happens, that if  this man quit  the marshy countiy without
delay to go and reside in another that is dry and mountainous,
his health is apparently restored, and the fever leaves him, if it
has not taken too deep a root—that is to say, the psora passes
again to a latent state, because  it had not yet reached its  final
degree of developement; but he is not cured, nor can he enjoy
perfect health, until  he has made use of an anti-psoric  treat-
ment.
  * Large doses of cinchona or sulphate of quinine may  certainly free
the patient from the typical attacks of marsh intermittent fevers; but he
is still unhealthy in another way, and anti-psorics only will effect a per-
fect cure.

   § 245.  Having now seen what degree  of attention ought, in
the homoeopathic treatment, to be  bestowed on the principal
diversities of diseases and their peculiar circumstances, we pass
on to the remedies themselves, the manner of applying them, and
the regimen to be observed by the patient during the time he is
submitted to their action. Both in acute  and chronic diseases,
every perceptible amelioration  that takes place making  con-
tinual progress,  though  of ever  so  feeble a nature, is a  state
which, as long as it endures, formerly forbids the repetition of
any medicine whatever, because  the one  already  taken by the
patient has not yet produced all the good that may result from
it.  Every fresh dose of a remedy, even of the one last adminis-
tered, and which had till then proved salutary, would have no
effect but that of disturbing the operation of the cure.

   § 246.  On the contrary, one dose of a suitable homoeopathic
remedy, if its developement be  sufficiently  subtile, gradually
completes all the beneficial effects which, from its nature, it is 
187
capable of producing, and provided its operation be undisturbed,
sometimes in the  space of forty, fifty,  to  one hundred days.
This, however, is  seldom  the case ;  and it depends upon the
physician as well  as upon the  patient, whether these periods
may not be abridged to the extent of one-half, one-fourth, or
even to a shorter time, and thus a more speedy cure effected.
Recent and  abundant experience has taught us that this may
be happily accomplished under three conditions:  first, when a
remedy  has been chosen with  due  circumspection—that is,
strikingly homoeopathic;  secondly, when it is administered in
the highest developement, the least revolting to the vital power,
and yet  sufficiently energetic to influence it; and thirdly, when
such  a  subtile,  energetic  dose of the best selected  remedy is
repeated at  the  most  suitable  intervals,*  which experience has
determined for accelerating the cure,  yet. in fulfilling this con-
dition, it is requisite that the  vital power to be influenced to the
production of the similar medicinal disease, may not be excited
to disagreeable counteraction.

  * In the former editions of the Organon I have  recommended that a
single dose of a well-chosen homoeopathic remedy be permitted to com-
plete its operation, before a repetition of the same, or the administration
of another remedy—a doctrine which was the result of certain experience,
it being ascertained that too large a dose even of a well-selected remedy
(which, as if by a retrograde course, has  been of late again proposed),
or what is the same thing, numerous  small doses, repeated in quick sue-"
cession, rarely ever  effected the  greatest  possible  benefit in the cure of
diseases, and particularly of the chronic.   Because, by such a practice,
the vital  power, in its transition from the  state induced by natural dis-
ease to that of a similar medicinal one, cannot tranquilly adapt itself to
the change, but generally becomes so violently excited from a large
dose, or the frequent repetition of smaller  doses even of a homoeopathic
remedy, that, in most cases, its reaction is any thing rather than salu-
tary ; in short, it is more injurious than useful. As long as nothing more
beneficial was at that time discovered, than the practice then taught by
me, the philanthropic precautionary rule,  si non  jurat, modo ne noceat,
enjoined upon the homoeopathic physician who regarded the good of h s
species as his highest aim, to administer in diseases, generally, but one
and the smallest dose of the suitable remedy, and to wait for its com-
plete effect.  I say the smallest dose, since  it will stand good as a homoeo-
pathic rule of cuie, refutable  by  no experience whatever, that the best
dose of the rightly selected medicine is ever the  smallest, and in one of
the higher developements (X°) for chronic as well as acute diseases—a
truth which is the invaluable property of pure homoeopathy, and which, 
188
 so  long  as  alloeopathy (and what is but little short of it, the practice of
 the new mongrel  sect,  consisting in a combination of alloeopathy and
 homoeopathy) continues to gnaw like a cancer upon the vitals of diseased
 human beings, and to destroy the.m with large  doses of medicine, will
 separate these pretended  arts by an immeasurable gulph  from homoeo-
 pathy.
  On  the other hand, although practice points  out to  us that a single
 small  dose is sufficient in some cases of disease, particularly those of a
 lighter kind, and in those of small  children and  adults of a tender and
 irritable constitution,  to produce almost all that the medicine is  capable
 of producing, yet in most cases, both of chronic disease of long standing,
 (often previously  almost  ruined by the  use of improper  medicines,)
 as  well  as in  important acute diseases,  such a minute dose, even
 when given in the higher developements, is manifestly not sufficient to
 perform all the curative effects which was to have been expected from
 one and the same medicine.   For this purpose,  unquestionably, it be-
 comes necessary to administer several of the same, that thereby the vital
 power may be pathogenetically influenced, and its healthy re-action  ex-
 tended so high, that  it may wholly obliterate all that portion of  the
 original disease which the well-selected homoeopathic remedy is capable
 of doing.   One small  dose of the best selected medicine produces,
 indeed, some relief, but not sufficient.
  But the careful homoeopathic physician will not venture frequently to
 repeat a dose of the same remedy, at short intervals, because no advan-
 tage is derived from this practice, but more frequently, as is attested by
 accurate  observation,  it is the source of certain  injury.  He generally
 sees an aggravation of the symptoms, even  from the smallest dose of a
 suitable remedy, which, on being given to  day, is repeated to-morrow
 and the day following.
  In order to afford greater relief in cases  where he is convinced that
 the  remedy is the most fitly chosen, than has been hitherto effected by
 prescribing only one small dose, it  naturally occurred to the physician
 to enlarge it  (since,  for  the reasons aforementioned, it was to  be
 administered once only), and instead of one minute globule moistened
 with the medicine  in  the  highest developement, to give six or eight at
 once,  and even a whole or half a drop.  But, almost without exception,
 the  results of this practice were less favourable than they ought to have
 been, often really injurious and of difficult reparation.
  Neither did the substitution of the lower dilutions administered in
 larger doses furnish any better expedient.
  To increase the  strength of  the dose of a homoeopathic remedy suffi-
 cient for producing the supposed  degree of  pathogenetic excitement of
the  vital powers requisite for salutary and sufficient reaction, fulfils
therefore,  as experience teaches, by no means  the desired  intention.
 The vital power is thereby too violently and too  suddenly assaulted to
allow of time for a gradual, equable,  and salutary counteraction; in order
to accommodate itself to its change,  therefore, it endeavours to rid itself 
189
 as if of an enemy, of the medicinal influence pressed upon it in excess,
 by means of vomiting, diarrhoea,  sweat, fever, &c, and  thus, in great
 measure, frustrates the aim of the indiscreet physician.  By this prac-
 tice, little or nothing is effected in the cure of the disease, rather is the
 patient thereby debilitated, and  a long  time  must  elapse  before  the
 smallest dose of the same remedy can be repeated, if it shall  not operate
 injuriously.
   But a number of small doses given in rapid succession with the same
 view,  accumulate in the system, and form, collectively, an excessive
 dose (a few rare cases excepted), with similar evil  consequences.  In
 this case, the vital power being unable to recover itself in the interval
 between the repetition of the doses, though they  be small, is oppressed
 and overcome, and thus being disabled  from calling into exercise  the
 force of curative reaction, is compelled involuntarily to yield to the con-
 tinuation of the excessive medicinal disease imposed upon it, in a manner
 similar to what is daily observed in the alloeopathic abuse of large and
 accumulating doses of one and the same medicine, to the lasting injury
 of the patient.
   Avoiding the errors here indicated, in order to arrive at  the desired
 object with more certainty than  heretofore, and  so to administer  the
 selected remedy that its virtues may be obtained without injury to  the
 patient, that in a given case of disease  all the benefit may  be derived
 from it, which, from its nature, it is capable of effecting, I have, of late,
 pursued a peculiar  method.
   I perceived that in  order to discover the true medium path,  it is neces-
 sary to be guided by the nature of the different medicines, as well as  the
 bodily constitution of the patient, and the  magnitude of  his disease.
 Let us give an example in the  use of sulphur in chronic (psoric) dis-
 eases.   The most subtile dose of this remedy (tinct. sulph. X°), even in
 robust persons with  developed psora, can seldom  be advantageously
 repeated oftener than every seven days, and the interval is to be propor-
 tionably prolonged, when a more  feeble and irritable patient of this kind
 is to be treated,  to nine, twelve, or fourteen days, before the repetition of
 a similar dose ;  but it is then to be repeated again  and again as long as
 the same remedy continues  to be  serviceable.  It is found (to continue
 the example of sulphur) that, in psoric diseases, seldom less  than four,
 often six or  eight, or even ten such doses {tinct. sulph. X°) are requisite
 for the complete destruction of that portion of the chronic disease which
 sulphur is capable of removing, to be administered  in the aforesaid inter-
 vals—provided there  has been  no previous alloeopathic  abuse of that
 medicine.   Thus a (primary) psoric eruption of recent origin in a
person not too much weakened, even when it may have extended over  the
 whole body, can be thoroughly cured by means of a dose of sulphur  re-
peated every seven days within the space of ten to twelve weeks (with
ten to twelve of such globules), so that it is rarely necessary, as an addi-
tional remedy, to administer a few doses of carb. veg. X° (in like manner 
190
given every week) without any external treatment whatever, except a
frequent change of linen, and appropriate regimen.
   When in other important chronic diseases, eight, nine, or ten doses of
tinct. sulph. (X°)may be considered necessary, instead of administering
them all in immediate  succession, it is preferable,  after each  dose, or
after every two or  three doses, to interpose  another suitable remedy
which, after  sulphur, is particularly homoeopathic in the  case (mostly
hepar. sulph. calc), and to permit this to operate for eight, nine, twelve,
or fourteen days before a repetition of three doses of sulphur.
   It not  unfrequently happens, however, that  the vital power rises in
opposition to the action of many doses of sulphur,  and will not permit
the tranquil operation of this remedy  even in  the intervals above indi-
cated, how necessary soever it may be for the chronic malady.   This
opposition  is  announced by  some symptoms of the remedy, which,
though moderate, yet become evident during the treatment.   It is then
sometimes  advisable to  administer  a small dose of  nux vom. X°,  and
suffer it to operate eight or ten days, in order to incline nature to permit
the sulphur again to act in  repeated doses, quietly and effectually.  In
fitting cases, puis. X° is to be preferred.
  But the vital power offers the most resistance  to the operation of
sulphur,  however plainly it may be indicated, when the remedy  had
been previously abused (even years before)  in large  doses.   Here an
aggravation of the chronic disease  is conspicuous upon  exhibiting the
smallest  dose of the  remedy, even  after smelling a globule  moistened
with tinct. sulph. X.  This deplorable condition which renders almost
impossible the best medical treatment of chronic diseases, is one among
the many which would lead  us to bemoan the very general deterioration
of chronic diseases, caused by the mal-practice of the old  school, were
we not here in possession of a remedy.
  In such cases, let the patient once strongly smell a globule as large as
a mustard seed, moistened with hydrarg. met.  X, which is to be allowed
to operate about nine days, in order  to render the vital power  again  dis-
posed for the beneficial operation  of sulphur  upon  it (at least by  the
smelling of tinct. sulph. X°)—a discovery for which  we are indebted to
Dr. Griesselich, of Carlsruhe.
  Of the  other anti-psoric remedies (except, perhaps, phosph. X.) it will
be necessary to administer a smaller number of doses at similar intervals
(of sepia, and sil. at longer  intervals, without  an intermediate remedy,
where they are homoeopathically indicated), in  order  to destroy all that
is curable by  the remedy, in a  given case,  Hep. sulph. can  rarely be
given in substance or  by smelling  at  shorter intervals than every four-
teen or fifteen days.
  It is  presumed that previously to undertaking such a  repetition of
doses, the physician  is well convinced that he has  chosen the proper
homoeopathic remedy.
  In acute diseases, the periods for repeating the dose must be regulated 
191
by the more or  less rapid course of the disease to be combated, so that,
when requisite, it may  be given in twenty-four, sixteen, twelve, eight,
or four hours, or even at shorter intervals, if without check, or the pro-
duction of new  symptoms, the remedy has proved beneficial;  but for a
dangerous acute disease whose progress  is rapid, the interval  must be
lessened ;  thus  in the most rapidly mortal disease with which we are
acquainted, in cholera, one or two drops of a dilute solution of  camphor
must be administered every five minutes, in order to procure speedy and
certain relief, and in the more developed form of the disease,  doses of
cuprum, veratrum, phosphor, &c. (X°), often every  two to three hours,
as well as arsen. carb. veg. &c, at intervals equally short.
  In the treatment of the so called nervous fever, and other continued
fevers, the practitioner is to be governed, in the repetition of the minutest
dose of the suitable medicine, by the same precautions.
  In pure  syphilitic diseases I have  generally found a single dose of
mercury (X°) sufficient;  yet  where  the  least complication with  psora
was perceptible, sometimes two or three such doses were necessary,
given in intervals of six or eight days.
  In those cases wherein a particular remedy is strongly indicated, but
the  patient is very weak  and irritable, once  smelling a globule of the
size of a mustard seed,  moistened with the  medicine, is safer and more
serviceable than when it is  taken in substance, even in the  minutest
dose of the higher dilutions.  In the process  of smelling, the patient
should hold the  vial containing the globule under one nostril, when one
momentary inhalation of  the air in the vial is to be made, and if the
dose is intended to be stronger, the same operation may be repeated with
the  other  nostril.  The operation of  the medicine  thus administered,
continues  as long as when  it is  taken in substance, and therefore the
smelling  must  not be repeated at shorter intervals than when taken in
the  latter  mode.

  §  247.   Subject to these conditions, the most subtile doses of
the  best  chosen  homoeopathic  medicine can be repeated at
intervals of fourteen, twelve, ten,  eight, to seven days, with the
best and frequently almost incredible effects; when more haste is
necessary, in cases of chronic  disease approaching to acute, it
may be repeated at still shorter intervals ; but in acute diseases,
the periods of repetition may be far more considerably abridged
to twenty-four, twelve, eight, or four hours, and in the most acute
from one hour down to five minutes : in short, proportionably
to the greater  or less rapidity with which the disease  runs its
course, and to the  nature of  the remedy  administered, as is
more fully explained in the note to the preceding paragraph. 
192
   § 248.  The dose of the  same medicine should be repeated
 until a cure is effected, or until it ceases any longer to afford
 relief;  in the latter alternative, the remnant of the disease,
 with its  altered  group  of  symptoms, will  require  another
 homoeopathic remedy.

   §  249.   Every medicine which, in the course of its operation,
 produces new symptoms that do not appertain to the disease to
 be cured, and that are annoying, is  incapable of procuring real
 amendment,*  and cannot be  considered  as homoeopathically
 chosen.   If the deterioration  of symptoms be  important, the
 effect of the  medicine  must be extinguished, in part, without
 delay, by means of an antidote,  before  another  and  more
 homoeopathic  remedy is given, or if the new symptoms be not
 violent, the other remedy must  be  immediately given, to take
 the place  of that which has been  so unfitly chosen.
   * All experience teaches us, that scarcely any homoeopathic medicine
 can be prepared in too minute a dose  to produce perceptible benefit in a
 disease to  which it is adapted (§ 161. 279).  Hence  it would be an im-
 proper and injurious practice, when the medicine produces no good
 effect, or an inconsiderable exacerbation of the symptoms, after the
 manner of  the   old school, to repeat  or  increase  the  dose  under
 the idea that it  cannot prove  serviceable on account of  its  minute-
 ness.  Every exacerbation caused by new symptoms, when  nothing
 injurious has occurred with regard to diet or mental impressions, always
 proves the unsuitableness  of the medicine previously given, but  never
 indicates the weakness of the dose.

   §  250.   When in  urgent  cases, after the lapse of six, eight,
 to twelve hours, it becomes manifest to the observant physician
 who has  accurately investigated the character of the disease,
 that he has made a false selection of the remedy last adminis-
tered, when, during the appearance of new  symptoms, the dis-
ease becomes,  though slightly, yet evidently worse from hour to
 hour, it is not  only admissible,  but duty renders it  imperative
on him to rectify the  mistake he has made, and  administer
another homoeopathic remedy  not only tolerably, but the best
 possibly adapted to the  morbid condition at the time (§ 167).

   & 251.   There  are some  medicines, for example, ignatia 
193
amara, bryonia, rhus, and sometimes belladonna, whose power
of changing the human economy chiefly consists in the produc-
tion of alternate effects—a kind of primary symptoms, partly in
opposition to each other.  If the physician find no improvement
after the strict homoeopathic selection and administration of one
of these remedies (in acute cases, after a few hours), then by
repeating it in  the same dilution, he will quickly obtain  the
desired  effect.*
  * As I have explained more circumstantially in the introduction to the
article ignatia (Mat. Med. vol. ii.)

   § 252.  But if in a chronic disease (psoric) the most homoeo-
pathic remedy (anti-psoric), administered  in the smallest and
most suitable dose, does not produce an amendment, it is a sure
sign that the cause which keeps up the disease still exists, and
that there is something either in the regimen or condition of the
patient that  must be first altered before a permanent cure  can be
effected.

   § 253.  In all diseases,  particularly those which are acute,
the state of mind and  general  demeanour of the patient are
among the first and most certain of the symptoms (which are
not perceived  by every one) that  announce the beginning of
any slight amendment or augmentation of the malady.  If the
disease  begins to improve,  though in  ever so slight a degree,
the patient feels more at ease,  he is more tranquil, his mind is
less restrained, his spirits revive, and all his conduct is, so to
express it, more natural.  The very reverse takes  place where
there is  only a slight increase; an embarrassment and help-
lessness, which call for commiseration, are observable  in the
mind and temper of the patient,  as well as in all  his actions,
gestures, and postures—something both remarkable and peculiar
which cannot escape the eye of an attentive observer, but which
it would be  difficult to describe in words.*
  * But the signs of amendment furnished  by the mind and temper of
the patient, are never visible, (shortly after he has taken the remedy,)
but where the dose has been attenuated to the proper degree—that is to
say, as much  as possible.   A dose stronger than necessary (even of the
most homoeopathic remedy) acts with too great violence, and plunges the
moral and intellectual faculties into such disorder that it is impossible to
       25 
194
discover quickly any amendment that takes place.  I must observe in
this place, that it is the common fault of physicians who go  from the
old school of medicine over to the homoeopathic to violate this most im-
portant rule. Blinded by prejudice, they avoid small doses of medicines
attenuated to the highest degree, and thus deprive themselves of the
great advantages which experience has a thousand  times proved to  re-
sult from them; they cannot accomplish that which the  true homoeopa-
thist  is capable of  doing, and yet they falsely declare  themselves  his
disciples.

   j 254.   If we  add to this, either  the  appearance  of fresh
symptoms,  or the aggravation of those which previously ex-
isted, or, on the contrary, the diminution of the primitive symp-
toms without the manifestation of any new ones,  the physician
who  is gifted with discrimination  and discernment  will  no
longer doubt whether the disease is aggravated or ameliorated,
though there may be patients  who are incapable  of telling
whether they are better or worse, and even some  who refuse to
tell it.

   § 255.   Even in the  latter case  it is  easy to  arrive at the
positive truth by  going through all  the symptoms which have
been noted down in the description of the malady and passing
them in review successively with the patient.  If  the latter does
not complain of  any new symptoms  that were not mentioned
before—if  none of the previous symptoms are aggravated in a
manifest degree—and when, finally, an  amendment of the
moral and  intellectual faculties is perceptible—it  is certain that
the remedy has effected an essential diminution of the malady,
or if only too short an interval has elapsed since its administra-
tion, that it is on  the point of doing so.  But  if the remedy has
been well selected, and the amendment, notwithstanding, delays
its appearance, it can only be attributed, either to some irregu-
larity on the part of the patient, or to the lengthened duration
of the homoeopathic aggravation (§ 151) excited by the medicinal
substance, and we ought thence to conclude that  the dose was
not minute enough.

   § 256.   On the other hand, if the  patient describes  any re-
cent symptoms of some importance,  (which indicate  the  un-
suitable choice of the remedy) if will be vain for him to declare 
195
that he feels himself better;  the physician, far from believing
him, ought, on the contrary, to consider him worse than before,
of the truth of which he will soon have ocular demonstration.

  §  257.   A true physician  will beware of forming a predilec-
tion for any particular  remedies which  chance may sometimes
have led  him  to administer with success.   This preference
might cause him to reject others which would be still more ho-
moeopathic, and consequently of greater efficacy.

  §  258.   He must, likewise, be careful not to entertain a preju-
dice against those remedies from which he may have experienced
some check, because he had made a bad selection, and he should
never lose sight of this great truth, that of all known remedies" '
there is but one that merits a preference before all  others, viz.
—that whose symptoms  bear the closest resemblance to the
totality of those which characterise  the malady.    No petty j
feeling should have any influence in so serious a matter.

  §  259.   As it is requisite,  in the homoeopathic treatment, that
the  doses  should be extremely small,  it may be readily con-
ceived that every thing which exercises a medicinal influence on
the patient, should be removed from his regimen and mode of
life,  in  order  that the  effects of such  minute  doses may not
be destroyed, overpowered or disturbed, by any foreign stimu-
lant,*)
  * The softest tones of the flute, which at a distance in the stillness of
the night inspire the gentle mind with a sentiment of religion and piety,
only cleave the air in vain when they are accompanied by noise and dis-
cordant sounds.

  § 260.  In chronic diseases, more especially,  it is important
to remove all obstacles of this  nature  with  the greatest care,
since it is  by them, or some other  errors in regimen (which
often remain undiscovered),  that they are aggravated.*

  *  Such, for example, as by coffee, teas of all the different kinds, or
beer containing  vegetable substances that  are unfit  for the patient,
liqueurs (cordials), especially those prepared from medicinal aromatics,
all kinds of punch, spiced chocolate, sweet waters and perfumery of all
kinds, odorous flowers in the room, preparations for the teeth either in 
196
powder or liquid wherein medicinal substances are included, perfumed
bags, strongly seasoned viands and sauces, pastry and ice cream with aro-
matics, pot herbs, culinary greens, or roots containing medicinal proper-
ties, old cheese or butter, stale meat, the flesh and fat of swine, geese and
ducks,  young veal,  or acids.  Every one of these act  medicinally, and
ought to be carefully removed from patients of this kind. All excesses at
table are to be interdicted, even in the use of sugar and salt, as well as of
spirituous liquors, hot rooms, flannel worn next to the skin.  (Flannel
must not be left off till warm weather, and then  exchanged for cotton,
and afterwards for linen.) The physician will likewise forbid a sedentary
life in  close rooms,  passive exercise (by riding or driving, swinging and
rocking in chairs,) sleeping too long after dinner, nocturnal occupations,
uncleanliness, unnatural voluptuousness,  and the reading of obscene
books, the occasions of anger, grief, and malice, a passion for gaming,
excessive mental and bodily labour, a residence in a marshy situation,
or in a  chamber that is not properly ventilated, penurious living, &c. &c.
All practicable care should be observed by the patient to avoid these for-
bidden  things, in order that no impediment  may be interposed which
would render  the cure difficult or impossible.  Some  of my adherents
appear  to exact too much from their patients, by unnecessarily and im-
properly excluding from their diet things indifferent.

   §  261.  The most suitable regimen in chronic diseases  con-
sists in removing  every thing which might impede the cure, and
by bringing about an opposite state, where it is necessary, by
recommending innocent cheerfulness, exercise  in the open  air,
in almost all weathers  (daily walks,  light manual  labour), ali-
ments  that  are suitable, nourishing,  and free from medicinal
influence, <fec, <fcc.

   §  262.  On the other hand, in acute diseases (mental aliena-
tion excepted) the  preservative  instinct of the vital  power
speaks in so clear and precise a manner that the physician has
only to recommend to the family or  nurses of the patient  not
to thwart nature by refusing the patient any thing he may long
for,  or by trying to persuade him to  take things that might do
him injury.

   §  263.  The food and drink demanded by a patient labour-
ing under an acute disease act for  the most part as palliatives
only, and can at farthest effect momentary relief; but they con-
tain no real medicinal qualities, and are  merely conformable to
a species of desire on his part.  Provided the gratification which 
197
they, in this respect, procure the patient, be confined within pro-
per limits,  the slight obstacles* which they could place in the
way of a radical cure of the disease are more than covered by
the influence of the homoeopathic remedy, by the greater extent
of liberty given to the vital  powers, and the ease and satisfac-
tion that follow the possession of any object  that  is ardently
desired.  In acute diseases, the temperature of the chamber  as
well as the quantity of bed-covering should  likewise be  regu-
lated according to  the wishes of the patient; likewise care is
to be taken to remove every thing that could disturb his mental
repose.

  * These are, however, unfrequent.  Thus, for example, in a pure in-
flammatory disease, where aconite is  indispensable, but  which by the
use of vegetable acids would be neutralised, the patient has, in almost
all cases, a longing for pure cold water.

   §  264.  A skilful physician will  never rely on  the  curative
virtues of medicines unless he has procured  them in the most
pure and perfect state.   It is, therefore,  requisite that he should
be capable of judging of their purity.

   §  265.  For the repose  of his own conscience, he ought  to
be  thoroughly convinced  that the patient always takes the
right remedy chosen for him.

   \  266.  Substances derived  from  the animal and  vegetable
kingdoms are never in the full possession  of their medicinal
virtues but when they are in a raw state.*

  * All animal and vegetable  substances in a crude state are more or
less possessed of medicinal virtues, and can modify the health each in
its own peculiar manner.  The animals and plants which civilised na-
tions are in the habit of using as food have the advantage over all others
that they contain more nourishment, are less energetic in their medicinal
properties,  the greater part of which  is lost by the preparation which
they undergo—such as by the expression of the pernicious juice (e. g. of
the American cassada), by fermentation (that of the dough with which
bread is made, sour-crout, &c), by dressing or torrefaction which either
destroys or dissipates the parts to which these properties adhere.  The
addition of salt or vinegar likewise produces the same effect, but then
other inconveniences result from it.
   Plants containing the  most powerful medicinal virtues are likewise 
198
 rendered  totally or  partially inert when  they  are treated by the same
 process.   Iris root, horse radish, the arum and  peony, also become inert
 by drying.  The virtues of the  most  active vegetable juices are often
 completely destroyed by the high temperature  employed in the prepara-
 tion of their extracts.   The juice  of the most dangerous plant will  be
 divested of all its properties if it be suffered to stand still for a certain
 time—it passes rapidly into a state of vinous  fermentation even when
 the temperature is moderate, and immediately after it becomes sour, and
 then putrid, which annihilates all its medicinal  virtues, and the sediment
 which remains is nothing more  than inert fecula.  Green herbs put
 together in a heap lose the greater part of their medicinal properties by
 the transudation which they undergo.

   §  267.  The most certain and effectual means of obtaining
 the  medicinal  power of indigenous plants which can be pro-
 cured fresh, is to express their juice and mix it immediately after
 with equal parts of alcohol  of sufficient  strength  to  consume
 spunk that is immersed in  it.  Let the mixture  stand  twenty-
 four hours in corked bottles, decant the  clear liquor  from the
 filamentous and glairy dregs, then preserve for medicinal use.1
 The alcohol which is added to the juice prevents fermentation.
 The liquor is to be kept in  a dark place  in well corked  glass
 bottles.   In this manner the medicinal virtues of plants may be
 preserved for ever perfect and free from the slightest change.2

  1 Buchholz (Taschenbuch fur  Scheidekunstler und Apotheker, 1815, I.
 VI.) assures his readers (uncontradicted by his  critic in the " Leipzige
 Literaturzeitung, 1816, No. 82,) that they are indebted  to the Russian
 Campaign for this excellent mode of preparing medicines, previous  to
 which (1812) it was unknown in Germany. But, in reporting this in
 the very words of the first edition of my Organon, he intentionally con-
 ceals that I am the author who published it two  years before the Russian
 Campaign (1810). Some people would rather make it appear that a dis-
 covery came from the deserts of Asia, than  attribute the honour of it to
 a  German!  It is true alcohol was  formerly sometimes added to the
juice of plants in order to preserve it for  a time previous to making ex-
 tracts of it; but  this  addition was never made with the intent  of ad-
 ministering this mixture under the  title of a remedy.
  2 Although equal parts  of alcohol  and juice recently expressed are
 generally the proportions best suited to produce the precipitation of al-
 buminous  and  fibrous matter, there are, however, some  plants which
 contain so much mucus, such as Symphytum, jacea, &c, or an extraor-
 dinary quantity of albumen, such as athuca synapium, solanum nigrum
 and  others, that they usually require double the quantity of alcohol!
 As regards plants that are very dry, such as  oleander, buxus, taxus, 
199
ledum, sabina,  &c. it is necessary to commence by rubbing them down
into a homogeneous and humid paste, and then add double the quantity
of alqohol, which unites with the vegetable juice, and facilitates its ex-
traction by means of the press.  But the  latter may be also  rubbed to
the third power with sugar of milk, and afterwards its energy developed
according to § 271.

   § 268.   With regard to exotic plants,  bark, seeds, and roots,
which cannot be  obtained in a fresh state, a prudent physician
will never accept the powder upon the faith of other individuals.
Before he  makes use of them in his practice, it is necessary that
he should  have them entire and unprepared, to be able to satisfy
himself of their purity.*

   * To preserve them in the form of powder one precaution is necessary,
which has hitherto  been neglected by the majority of pharmacopolists,
who were unable to preserve  even the most carefully dried animal and
vegetable substances in the form  of powder without  their undergoing a
change.   Vegetable substances, even when they are perfectly dry,  still
retain a certain portion of moisture which is indispensable to the cohe-
sion of their tissue, which does not prevent the drug being incorruptible
so long as it is left entire, but which becomes superfluous the moment it
is pulverised.  It  therefore follows, that any animal or vegetable  sub-
stance that was quiie dry when entire,  becomes slightly moist when re-
duced to the form of powder, which soon spoils and grows mouldy even
in bottles that  are well stopped, unless this superfluous moisture has been
previously removed.  The best mode of effecting this is to  spread the
powder  on  a flat plate of tin with  raised  edges, floating  in a boiling
water-bath, and stir it till the parts no longer hang in small lumps, but
glide separately from each other  like fine sand. When they are dried by
this process, and sealed up in bottles, powders will retain all their primi-
tive medicinal powers/or ever without either growing mouldy or en-
gendering mites, but  care must be taken  to keep the bottles in a dark
place enclosed in chests or  boxes.  Animal  and vegetable  substances
gradually lose  their medicinal virtues even when they are preserved en-
tire, but much  more so when they are in the form of powder, if the bot-
tles are not stoppered air proof, and kept in a dark place.

   §  269.   The  homoeopathic healing art developes for its pur-
poses the immaterial (dynamic) virtues of medicinal substances,
and, to a degree previously unheard of,  by means of a peculiar
and  hitherto untried process.   By this  process it is that they
become  penetrating, operative, and remedial,  even those  that,
in a natural  or crude  state,  betrayed not the least medicinal
power upon the human system. 
200
   § 270.   If two drops of a mixture of equal parts of alcohol
and the recent juice of  any medicinal plant (see § 267) be
diluted with ninety-eight drops of alcohol in a vial capable of
containing one hundred and thirty drops, and the whole twice
shaken together,  the medicine  becomes  exalted in  energy
(potenzirt) to the first developement of power, or, as it may be
denominated, the  first  potence.   The process  is to be  con-
tinued  through  twenty-nine  additional vials, each  of equal
capacity with the first, and each containing ninety-nine drops
of spirits of  wine; so that every successive vial,  after the  first,
being furnished with one drop from the vial or dilution  imme-
diately preceding  (which had just been twice shaken), is, in its
turn, to be shaken twice,* remembering  to number the dilution
of each vial  upon the cork as the  operation proceeds.   These
manipulations  are to be  conducted thus through all the vials,
from the first up to the thirtieth or decillionth  developement of
power (potenzirte  Decillion-Verdunnung, X.), which is the one
in most general use.

  * In order to have a determinate rule for the moderate developement
of power of the  fluid medicines, multiplied experience and observation
have led me to retain two shakes for every vial, in preference to a greater
number, which had previously been used, but which developed the energy
in too great a degree.  On the contrary, there are homoeopathists  who,
in their visits to the sick, carry about their persons the  medicines in  a
fluid state, which, they nevertheless  affirm, do not in time become in-
creased in energy by the frequent agitation to which they are thus sub-
jected.   This  declaration, however,  betrays on their part the want of a
talent for accurate observation.  I dissolved a grain of natron in half an
ounce of a mixture of water and a little alcohol, poured the solution into
a vial, which was thereby filled two-thirds, and shook it uninterruptedly
for half an hour.  By this agitation, the fluid attained an  energy equal
to that  of the thirtieth dilution.

   § 271.  All  other  medicinal  substances, excepting sulphur,
which of latter years  has been employed only in the form of the
highly diluted tincture (X), such, for example, as the metals
either pure,  oxydized, or in the form of sulphurets, and other
minerals, petroleum, phosphorus, the parts or juices of plants,
obtainable only in their  dry or inspissated state, animal  sub-
stances, neutral salts, &c.—one  and all were, in the first place,
exalted  in energy by attenuation in  the form of  powder (by 
201
 means of three  hours' trituration in a mortar,) to the millionth
 degree.  Of this, one grain was then dissolved and brought
 through  twenty-seven  vials, by a process  similar  to that
 employed in the case of vegetable juices, up to the thirtieth
 developement of power.*
  * The process is described at large in the " Chronische Krankheiten,"
 second edition, and in the il Arzneimittellehre," vol. ii. third edition.

   §  272.   In no instance  is it requisite to employ more than
 one simple medicinal substance at a time.*
  * Experiments  have been  made by some  homoeopathists  in cases
 where, imagining  that one part of the  symptoms of a  disease required
 one remedy, and that another  remedy  was more suitable  to the other
 part, they have given both remedies at the same time, or nearly so ; but
 1 earnestly caution all  my adherents  against such a hazardous practice,
 which never will be necessary, though, in some instances, it may appear
 serviceable.

   s  273.   It is scarcely  possible to conceive  how a doubt can
 still exist on the question, whether it is more reasonable and
 conformable to nature to employ but one known  medicine at a
 time in a case of sickness, or to  prescribe a mixture of several
 drugs.

   § 274.   As the true physician  finds in simple and  uncom-
 pounded medicines all he can desire—that is  to  say, the artifi-
 cial  morbific  agents whose homoeopathic powers  completely
 cure  natural  diseases; and as it  is a wise  precept never  to
 attempt with the aid of several  powers that which  can be
 effected by a single one, he will  never  think of administering
 as a remedy more than one simple  medicine at a  time.  For he
 knows that if even the pure and  specific effects of every medi-
 cine, upon the healthy state of man, had  been discovered, we
 should  still remain  as  ignorant  as we  were before, as to the
 manner in which two medicinal  substances, mixed together,
 might oppose and  modify each  other reciprocally in their
effects.  He is aware that a single medicine, administered in  a
disease where the totality of the  symptoms is  perfectly similar
to its own, cures it completely;  and he is likewise  convinced,
even  in the  least favourable case, where the remedy  would
       26 
202
not  perfectly harmonise  with the  malady, in regard to the
resemblance of the symptoms, that it leads to a knowledge of
the  curative  medicine,  since  the  new  symptoms  which  it
excites in such a case confirm those  which it formerly created,
when tried  upon healthy individuals—an advantage that can
never be derived where compound medicines are employed.*

  * A judicious physician will confine himself to an internal application
of the remedy which he has selected as homoeopathic as possible, and
will leave  the use of ptisans, little bags filled with  medicinal herbs,
fomentations of vegetable decoctions, washes, and frictions with different
species of ointments, injections, &c, to those who practise according to
routine.

   § 275.  The appropriation of a medicine to any given case
of disease does not depend solely upon  the circumstance of its
being perfectly homoeopathic, but also upon the minute  quan-
tity of the dose in which it is administered.  If too  strong a dose
of a  remedy,  that is even entirely  homoeopathic, be given, it
will  infallibly injure the patient, though the  medicinal sub-
stance be of ever so salutary a nature; the impression it makes
is  felt more sensibly, because, in virtue of its homoeopathic
character, the  remedy acts  precisely  on those  parts of the
organism which have already been most exposed to the attacks
of the natural disease.

   § 276.  Even a  homoeopathic medicine is, on this account,
always injurious when given in too large  a dose, and hurtful to
the patient in proportion to the extent of the  quantity adminis-
tered.  But the increase of the dose itself is  also prejudicial in the
same degree as the remedy is more homoeopathic ;  and a strong-
dose of  such a medicine would do more harm than the dose of
an alloeopathic medicinal substance (which  bears no analogy
whatever to  the disease) of equal strength; for, in that case,
the homoeopathic aggravation (§ 157—160)—that  is to say, the
artificial malady, which is very analogous to the natural  one
excited  by  the remedy in  the  most  suffering  parts of the
organism—is carried to a height that is injurious (§ 246, note)-
whereas, if it had been confined  within proper limits, it would
have effected a gentle,  prompt, and certain cure.   It is true the
patient  no longer suffers  from the primitive malady which has 
203
 been homoeopathically destroyed, but he suffers so  much more
 from  the  medicinal  one which was much too powerful, and
 from unnecessary debility.

   § 277.  For this very reason, and because a remedy adminis-
 tered in a dose sufficiently small is  so  much  more efficacious,
 nay, almost  wonderfully so,  in  proportion  as it has  been
 homoeopathically selected,  in  the  same manner,  a  medicine
 whose  peculiar symptoms  correspond  perfectly with those of
 the  disease, ought to be  salutary in  proportion as the dose
 approaches nearer to the appropriate  minuteness  to which it
 should be reduced to effect a gentle cure.

   § 278.  The question that now suggests itself is, to discover
 what may be the degree of minuteness  of the  dose  best calcu-
 lated to render the  salutary effects  intended  to be produced
 certain  and gentle—that  is  to  say, how far  the dose  of a
 homoeopathic  remedy, in any given case of disease, ought to
 be reduced, in order  to  derive from it  the best possible cure.
 It may be readily conceived that no theoretical conjecture will
 furnish  an answer to this problem, and that it is not by such
 means we can establish,  in respect to each individual medicine,
 the  quantity of the dose that suffices to produce the homoeopa-
 thic effect, and  accomplish a prompt  and gentle cure.  No
 reasonings, however ingenious, will avail in this instance.  It
 is by pure experiments only, and precise observations, that this
 object can be attained.   It would be  absurd to  bring forward
 as an  objection  the  large  doses used  in ordinary medicine,
 which are not applied to  the suffering parts  themselves, but
 merely to those not attacked by the disease.  This would  be
•no argument  against the minuteness of the doses which pure
 experiments have proved to be necessary in homoeopathic treat-
 ment.

   §  279.   It has been fully proved by  pure experiments  that
 when a disease does not evidently depend upon the impaired
 state of an important organ, even though it were of a chronic
 nature,  and  complicated, and due  care  has  been taken  to
 remove  from the patient all foreign  medicinal  influence, the
 dose  of the homeopathic remedy can never be sufficiently small so 
204
as to be inferior to the power of the natural disease which it can, at
least, partially extinguish and cure, provided it be capable of pro-
ducing  only a small increase of symptoms  immediately after  it is
administered (§ 157—160).


   § 280.  This incontrovertible  axiom,  founded upon  expe-
rience, will serve as a rule by which the doses of all homeopathic
medicines, without exception, are to be attenuated to such a degree
that after being  introduced into the body they shall merely produce
an almost insensible aggravation  of the disease.   It  is of  little
import whether the attenuation goes so far as to  appear almost
impossible  to ordinary  physicians whose minds feed  on  no
other ideas but what are gross and material.*  All their argu-
ments and vain assertions will be of little  avail when opposed
to the dictates of unerring experience.

  * Mathematicians will inform them, that in whatever  number of parts
they may divide a substance, each portion  still retains a small share of
the material; that, consequently, the most  diminutive part  that can be
conceived never  ceases to be something, and can in no instance be re-
duced to nothing.  Physicians  may  learn from them that there exist
immense powers which  have no weight, such  as  light and heat, and
which are consequently infinitely lighter than the medicinal contents of
the smallest homoeopathic doses.  Let them weigh, if they can, the in-
jurious words which excite a bilious fever, or the afflicting  news of the
death of a son, which terminates the existence of an affectionate mother.
Let them only touch, for a quarter of an hour, a magnet capable of carry-
ing a weight of an hundred pounds, and the pain will soon teach  them
that even the imponderable bodies can also produce on man the most
violent medicinal effects !  Let any of these weak-minded mortals of a
delicate  constitution but gently  apply, during a few minutes, to the pit
of the stomach the extremity of the thumb  of a vigorous mesmerist who
has fixed his intent, and the disagreeable sensations that he experiences
will soon make him repent having set limits to the boundless activity of
nature.
  If the  allceopathist, in essaying the  homoeopathic method, cannot
resolve upon administering doses that are so feeble and attenuated,  only
let him  ask himself  what risk he ventures by doing so.   If there is
nothing real except that which is possessed of weight, and if every thin°-
which has no weight ought to be looked upon as equal to nothing, a dose
that appears to him like nothing, could have no worse results than  that
of producing no effect at all, which is at least far more innocent than the
effects resulting from the strong doses of alloeopathic medicines.  Why
will the physician believe  his own inexperience, which is flanked by pre- 
205
 judice, more competent than the experience of several years grounded
 upon facts?  Added to this, the homoeopathic medicines acquire at each
 division or dilution a new degree of power by the rubbing or shaking
 they undergo, a means of developing the inherent virtues of medicines
 that was unknown till my time; and which is so energetic, that latterly
 I have been forced by experience to reduce the number of shakes to two,
 of which I formerly prescribed ten to each dilution.

  §  281.   All diseases have an extraordinary tendency to un-
 dergo a change when operated upon by the influence of homo-
 geneous medicinal  agents.  There is no  patient,  however
 robust  his constitution may be, who, if attacked merely by a
 chronic disease, or by what is called a local  malady, does not
 speedily experience a favourable  change in the suffering parts
 after having taken the appropriate  homoeopathic remedy in the
 smallest dose  possible.   In short,  the effects of this substance
 will make a greater impression on him than they would upon a
 healthy child twenty-four hours after its birth.  How insignifi-
 cant and ridiculous is mere theoretic incredulity, when opposed
 to the infallible evidence of facts !

  § 282.   However feeble  the dose of a remedy may be, pro-
 vided it can in the slightest degree  aggravate the state of the
 patient  homoeopathically ;—provided it has the power of ex-
 citing  symptoms similar  to those of the primitive disease, but
 rather more intense, it will, in  preference, and  almost exclu-
 sively, affect those parts of the organism that are  already in a
 state of suffering, and which are strongly irritated and predis-
 posed to receive any irritation analogous to their own.  Thus
 an artificial disease rather  more intense is substituted in  the
 place of the natural one.  The organism no longer suffers but
 from the former affection, which, by reason of its nature, and
the  minuteness of  the dose by which it was produced, soon
 yields to the efforts of the vital force to restore the normal state,
and thus leaves the body (if the disease was an  acute one) free
from suffering—that is to  say, in a  healthy condition.

  § 283.  To proceed, therefore, in a manner conformable to
nature,  the true physician will only administer a homoeopathic
remedy in the precise dose necessary to exceed and destroy the
disease  to which it is opposed, so that if by one of those errors, 
206
 pardonable to human frailty, he had made choice of a remedy
 that  was  inappropriate, the injury that  might result from it
 would be so slight that the developement of the vital force, and
 the administration of the smallest dose of another remedy more
 homoeopathic, would suffice  to repair it.

   §  284.  The effects of a dose are by no means diminished in
 the same proportion as the quantity of the medicinal  substance
 is attenuated in the homoeopathic practice.  Eight drops of a
 tincture taken at once do  not  produce upon the human body
four times the effect  of a dose  of two  drops ;  they merely pro-
 duce one that is nearly double.  In the same manner the single
 drop of a mixture, composed of one drop of a tincture and ten
 of a liquid void of all medicinal properties, does not produce
 ten times the effect that a, drop ten times more attenuated would
 produce, but merely arf effect that is scarcely double.   The pro-
 gression continues according to this law, so that a single drop
 ■of a dilution, attenuated in the highest degree, ought, and does
 in fact, produce a very considerable effect.*

   * Suppose, for example, that one drop of a mixture containing the tenth
 of a grain of any medicinal substanc'e produces an effect = a; a drop
 of another mixture containing merely a hundredth part of a grain of this
 same substance will only produce an eflect = ^; if it contains a ten thou-
 sandth part of a grain of medicine, the effect will be = j; if a millionth,
 it will be =i; and so on progressively, to an equal volume of the doses,
 the effects of the  remedy on the body will merely be diminished about
 one half each time that the quantity is reduced  nine tenths of what it
 was before.  I have often seen a drop of the tincture of nux vomica at
 the decillionth degree  of dilution, produce exactly  half the effect of
 another at the quintillionih degree, when I administered both one and
 the other to the same individual, and under the same circumstances.

   §  285.  By diminishing the volume of the  dose, the power
 of it is also diminished—that is  to say, when instead  of one
 entire drop of attenuated tincture merely a fraction of this drop
 be administered,*  the object  of rendering the effect less powerful
 is then very perfectly attained.   The reason of this may be easily
 conceived: the volume of the  dose being diminished it must
 necessarily follow that it will touch a less number of the nerves
 of the living organism, by  contact with which, it  is  true, the 
207
power of the medicine is communicated to the whole body, but
it is transmitted in a smaller degree.
  * The best mode of administration is to make use of small globules of
sugar, the size of a mustard seed;  one of these globules having imbibed
the medicine, and being  introduced  into the vehicle, forms a dose con-
taining about the  three hundredth part of a drop, for three hundred of
such globules will imbibe one drop of alcohol; by placing one of those
on the tongue, and not drinking any  thing after it, the dose is considera-
bly diminished.  But if the patient is very sensitive, and it is necessary
to  employ the smallest dose possible, and attain at the same time the
most speedy results, it will be sufficient to let him smell once.  (See §
288, note).

   § 286.  For  the same reason, the effect  of a homoeopathic
dose is increased when we augment the quantity  of the liquid in
which it is dissolved  to administer it to the patient; but then
the remedy comes  in contact with a much more extended sur-
face, and the nerves that feel its effects are far more numerous.
Although  theorists have asserted that the extension of a medi-
cine in liquid weakens its action, experience proves the reverse,
at least as far as regards homoeopathic remedies.*

   * Only wine and alcohol, which are the most  simple of all excitants,
lose a portion of their heating and exciting power when they are attenu-
ated in a large quantity of water.                                   >

   §  287.  It ought, however,  to be observed, that there is a wide
difference  between mixing imperfectly the medicinal substance
with a certain  quantity of liquid, and incorporating it so inti-
mately1  that the smallest fraction of the liquid may still retain
a  proportion of the medicine equal  to that which exists in  all
the  others.  In  short, the mixture possesses a much greater
medicinal power in the second case than  it does in the  first.
Rules may be deduced from this to serve as a guide in the pre-
paration of  homoeopathic medicines, where it is necessary to
diminish the effects of the remedies as much as possible in order
to make them supportable to the most delicate patients.8
   1 When I make use of the word intimately, I mean  to say  that by
shaking a drop of medicinal liquid with ninety -nine drops of alcohol once
—that is to say, by taking the phial in the hand which contains  the
whole, and imparting to it a rapid motion by a single powerful stroke of
the arm descending, I shall then obtain an exact mixture of them;  but 
208
 that two, three, or ten such movements would render the  mixture much
 closer—that is to say, they would  develope  the medicinal virtues still
 further, making them, as it were, more potent, and their action on the
 nerves much more penetrating.   In proceeding, therefore, to the dilution
 of medicinal substances, it is wrong to give the twenty or thirty succes-
 sive attenuating glasses more than two shakes, where it is merely intend-
 ed to develope the power of the medicine in a moderate degree.   It would
 also be well in the attenuation of powders  not to rub them down too
 much in the mortar; thus, for example, when it is requisite to mix one
 grain of a medicinal substance in its entire state with ninety-nine grains
 of sugar of milk, it ought to be rubbed down with force during one hour
 only, and the same  space of time should not  be exceeded in the subse-
 quent triturations, in order that the power of the medicine may not be car-
 ried to too great an  extent.  More ample instructions on this head are to
 be found in the first part of my work on chronic diseases, second edition.
   2 The higher the dilutions of a medicine  are carried in the process of
 developing its power by means of twice shaking, the more rapidly and
 with the more penetrating influence does it appear to affect medicinally
 the vital power, and produce changes in the economy with  an energy
 but little diminished even if the process of  dilution be carried to a great
 extent, for instance, instead of the ordinary  dilution X, (which is mostly
 sufficient), it be carried up to XX, L, C, and even  higher dilutions.

   §  288.   The action of medicines in a liquid form*  upon the
 the  body is so penetrating, it propagates itself with so much
 rapidity and  in  a manner so  general, from the irritable  and
 sensitive part  which has undergone the first impression of the
 medicinal substance to all  the other parts of  the body, that we
 might almost call it a spiritual (dynamic or virtual) effect.

   * Homoeopathic remedies operate with the most  certainty and energy
 by smelling or inhaling the medicinal aura constantly emanating from a
 saccharine globule that has been impregnated with the higher dilution of
 a  medicine, and in  a dry state enclosed in a small vial.  One  globule
 (of which 10, 20 to 100 weigh a grain) moistened with the 30th  dilution
 and then dried,  provided it be preserved from heat  and  the light of the
 sun,  retains its  virtues  undiminished,  at least for eighteen or twenty
 years (so far my experience  extends), although the  vial that contained it
had during that time been opened a thousand times.  Should the nostrils
be closed by  coryza or polypus, the patient may inhale through his mouth
holding the mouth of the vial between  his  lips.  It,may be applied to
the nostrils of small  children while they are asleep  with the certainty of
success.  During these inhalations the medicinal aura comes in contact
with the nerves, which are spread over the parietes of the ample  cavities
through which it freely passes, and thus influences the  vital power in
the mildest yet most powerful and beneficial manner.  AH that is curable 
209
by homoeopathy may with the most certainty and safety be cured by this
mode of receiving the medicine.  Of late I have become convinced of
the fact (which I would not  have previously believed), that smelling
imparts a medicinal influence as energetic and as long continued as when
the medicine is taken in substance by the mouth, and  at the same time
that its operation is thus  more gentle than when administered by the
latter mode.  It is therefore requisite that the intervals for repeating the
smelling should not be shorter than those prescribed for taking the medi-
cine in a more substantial form.

   §  289.   Every part of the body that is sensible to the touch
is equally susceptible of  receiving the impression of medicines
and of conveying it to all the other  parts.

   §  290.   Next to the stomach, the tongue and mouth are the
parts most susceptible of receiving medicinal influence.  How-
ever, the interior of the nose, the intestinum rectum, the genitals,
and all parts  endowed with  great sensibility, are  equally sus-
ceptible of the influence of medicines.  This is the reason that
when the latter are introduced into the body through wounds
or ulcers they act  as energetically as if administered by  the
mouth.

  § 291.   Even those organs which have  lost the sense  that
was peculiar  to them—such, for example, as the tongue and
palate deprived of taste,  the  nose of smell, &c.—communicate
to all the other parts of the body the effects of the medicines
acting immediately on themselves in as perfect a manner as if
they were in possession of their own peculiar faculties.

  § 292.   Although the surface of the body is covered with
skin and  epidermis, it  is  not less  accessible to the action of
medicines, especially of such  as are liquid.  However, the most
sensitive parts of this covering are those which have the greatest
tendency to receive it.*

  * Rubbing appears  only to favour the action of the medicine so far as
it renders the skin more sensitive, and the living fibre more apt, not only
to feel in a certain extent the medicinal virtue, but also to communicate
the sensation to the whole of the economy.  After having rubbed the
inner part of the thighs once, it will suffice afterwards merely to lay the
mercurial ointment on the parts, to obtain the same medicinal result as if
       27 
210
 direct friction had been used-  What is called " rubbing in" is of ques-
 tionable utility, as it is not certain whether the metal in substance can,
 by this process, penetrate the interior of the body, or be taken up by the
 lymphatic vessels.  The homoeopathist has little to do with  rubbing,
 and  makes no use whatever of mercurial ointments in his method of
 cure.

   §  293.  I again find it necessary, in this place, to say a few
 words on the subject of animal magnetism, the nature of which
 differs so greatly from that of all other remedies.  This curative
 power (which should be called mesmerism, after the name of its
 inventor, Mesmer,) of whose efficacy none but madmen can  en-
 tertain  a doubt, which, through  the powerful will  of a well
 intentioned individual,  influences  the  body  of the patient  by
 the touch, acts homoeopathically by exciting symptoms analo-
 gous to those of the  malady—and this  object is attained by a
 single transit, the determination being moderately fixed, and
 gliding the hands slowly over the body from the crown of the
 head to the soles of the feet.1   In this  form it is applicable to
 internal hemorrhages in their last stage when they threaten
 death.  It acts likewise by imparting a uniform degree of vital
 power to the organism when there is an  excess of it at one
 point and a deficiency at another—such, for example, as where
 there is a determination of blood to the head, or when a patient,
 in a state of debility,  is subject to insomnolency, anxiety, &c.
 In this case, a single transit, similar to the preceding one,  but
 stronger, is to be practised.
  Finally, it acts by immediately  communicating a  degree of
 vital power to a  weak part or to the entire organism—an effect
 that cannot be  produced by any other means with such cer-
 tainty, and without interfering with the other medical treatment.
 This third indication is performed  by assuming a very firm and
 decided manner, and applying the hands or tips of  the fingers
 to the weak parts, which an internal chronic affection  has made
 the seat of its principal local symptom—such, for example,  as
 old ulcers, amaurosis, paralysis of a limb, &c.2  To this class
 belong certain apparent cures that  have, in all ages, been per-
 formed by magnetisers who were endowed with great natural
 strength.   But the most brilliant result of the communication of
human vigour to the entire organism is where, by the resolute
and fixed determination of a man in the  full vigour  of life,3 it 
211
recalls to life persons who have remained in a state of apparent
death during a long interval of time,—a species of resurrection
of which history records many examples.

  1 The smallest homoeopathic dose, when properly applied, effects won-
ders.  It  not unfrequently occurs, that patients are overwhelmed, by
incompetent homoeopathists, with a rapid succession of remedies, which,
though well selected and of the highest potence, yet produce a state of
such excessive irritability, that the life of the patient is placed in jeopardy,
and another dose, however mild, may prove fatal.  Under such circum-
stances the hand of the mesmeriser gently sliding down, and frequently
touching  the part affected, produces an uniform distribution of the vital
power through the system, and  rest, sleep, and health, are restored.
  2 Although this operation of locally supplying the vital power, which
ought to be occasionally repeated, cannot effect a durable cure when the
local affection is of an ancient date, and depends upon (what very fre-
quently occurs) some general internal malady, still the positive  commu-
nication of the vital power, which is no more  a palliative than food
and drink to hunger and thirst, is of no slight aid in the radical cure of
the entire affection by antipsoric remedies.
  3 Particularly one of those men, of whom there are but few, who, pos-
sessing great good nature and complete bodily power, have a very mode-
rate inclination for sexual intercourse, and are able without difficulty
to suppress all their desires; in whom, consequently, an abundance of
the subtile vital energy, which would else be employed in the secretion
semen, is disposed to communicate  itself to other men  through the
medium of the touch, seconded  by a strong intention of the mind.  Some
such powerful mesmerisers whom I have  known had all these  singular
peculiarities.

   §  294.  All these methods  of applying mesmerism  depend
upon the afflux of a greater or lesser quantity of vital power in
the body of the  patient, and are, on that account, termed posi-
tive mesmerism1.  But there exists yet another, which deserves
the name of  negative mesmerism, because  it produces a con-
trary effect.   To this  class belong  the  customary transits to
awaken a subject from a state of somnambulism, and  all the
manual operations which are designated by the names calming
and ventilating.   The most simple and  certain  means of dis-
charging, by the aid of negative mesmerism, the excess of vital
power accumulated in any part of the body of a patient who has
not  been weakened, consist in passing, in a rapid manner, the
right arm, extended  at about the distance of an  inch from the
body, from the crown of the head to the soles of the  feet.3   The 
212
quicker  this passage is performed the stronger is  the discharge
that it produces. It can, for example, when a woman, previously
in the enjoyment  of health,3 has been plunged into a state of
apparent death by the suppression of her menses occasioned by
some violent mental commotion, recall  her  to life by carrying off
the vital power which probably accumulated in the precordial
region, and re-establish the equilibrium in the whole organism.4
In the same manner a slight negative passage, that is less rapid,
frequently allays the great agitation and fatiguing insomnolency
which are the results of a positive  passage  that  is too  strong
when exercised upon a very irritable patient.

  1 In treating here of the certain and decided curative virtues of positive
mesmerism I do not speak of the frequent abuses that are made of it, where
by repeating the passages during half an hour, and even a whole  hour,
daily, they occasion, in patients labouring under nervous affections, that
vast revolution of the human economy which bears the name of somnam-
bulism—a state in which man, removed from the animal world, appears
to belong more to the spiritual world, a highly unnatural and dangerous
condition, by means of which a cure of chronic diseases has frequently
been attempted.
  2 It is a known rule, that a person subjected to either positive or nega-
tive mesmerism ought not to wear silk on any part of the body.
  3 Consequently,  a negative transit, particularly if it  is very rapid,
would be extremely injurious to a person who had been for any length of
time in a weak condition, or in whom  the vital powers were not very
active.
  * A young country boy of robust constitution, about ten years of age,
was mesmerised for some slight indisposition by a woman who performed
several strong passages on him with the ends of  her two thumbs  from
the precordial region down to the termination of the ribs ; the boy immedi-
ately fell pale as deatli into such a state of  insensibility and immobility
that all means were tried in vain to recall him to life, and he was thought
to be dead. I caused his elder brother to make as rapid  a transit as pos-
sible on him from the crown  of the head to the soles  of the feet; he
immediately recovered his senses, and was  healthy and cheerful.
THE END. 
 

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