The Chronic
Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homœopathic Cure.
by Dr Samuel Hahnemann
Presented By Médi-T
(Page 1 … 9)
Nature
of Chronic Diseases.The Homœopathic healing art,
as taught in my own writings and in those of my pupils, when
faithfully followed, has hitherto shown its natural superiority over
any allopathic treatment in a very decided and striking manner; and
this not only in those diseases which suddenly attack men (the acute
diseases), but also in epidemic diseases and in sporadic fevers.Venereal diseases also have
been radically healed by Homœopathy much more surely, with less
trouble and without any sequelæ; for without disturbing or destroying
the local manifestation it heals the internal fundamental disease from
within only, through the best specific remedy. But the number of the
other chronic diseases on this great earth has been immeasurably
greater, and remains so.Treatment by allopathic
physicians hitherto merely served to increase the distress from this
kind of disease; for this treatment consisted of a whole multitude of
nauseous mixtures (compounded by the druggist from violently acting
medicines in large doses, of whose separate true effects they were
ignorant), together with the use of manifold baths, the sudorific and
salivating remedies, the, pain-killing narcotics, the injections,
fomentations, fumigations, the blistering plasters, the exutories and
fontanelles, but especially the everlasting laxatives, leeches,
cuppings and starving treatments, or whatever names may be given to
all these medicinal torments, which continually varied like the
fashions. By these means the disease was either aggravated and the
vital force, spite of so-called tonics used at intervals, was more and
more diminished; or, if any striking change was produced by them,
instead of the former. sufferings, there appeared a worse state
nameless diseases caused by medicine, far worse and more incurable
than the original natural one – while the physician consoled the
patient with the words: “The former sickness I have been
fortunate enough to remove; it is a great pity that a new (?) disease
has appeared, but I hope to be as successful in removing this latter
as in the former.” And so, while the same
disease assumed various forms, and while new diseases were
being added by the use of improper, injurious medicines, the
sufferings of the patient were continually aggravated until his
pitiable lamentations were hushed forever with his dying breath, and
the relatives were soothed with the comforting pretence: “Everything
imaginable has been used and applied in the case of the deceased.”It is not so with Homœopathy,
the great gift of God!Even in these other kinds of
chronic diseases, its disciples, by following the teachings presented
in my former writings and my former oral lectures, accomplished far
more than all the afore-mentioned methods of curing;
i. e., when they found the patient not too much run down
and spoiled by allopathic treatment, as was unfortunately too often
the case where the patient had any money to spend.Using the more natural
treatment, Homœopathic physicians have frequently been able in a
short time to remove the chronic disease which they had before them,
after examining it according to all the symptoms perceptibly to the
senses; and the means of cure were the most suitable among the
Homœopathic remedies, used in their smallest doses which had been so
far proved as to their pure, true effects. And all this was done
without robbing the patient of his fluids and strength, as is done by
the allopathy of the common physicians; so that the patient, fully
healed, could again enjoy gladsome days. These cures indeed have far
excelled all that allopathists had ever -in rare cases- been able to
effect by a lucky grab into their medicine chests.The complaints yielded for
the most part to very small doses of that remedy which had proved its
ability to produce the same series of morbid symptoms in the healthy
body; and, if the disease was not altogether too inveterate and had
not been too much and in too great a degree mismanaged by allopathy,
it often yielded for a considerable time, so that mankind had good
reason to deem itself fortunate even for that much help, and, indeed,
it often proclaimed its thankfulness. A patient thus treated might and
often did consider himself in pretty good health, when he fairly
judged of his present improved state and compared it with his far more
painful condition before Homœopathy had afforded him its help. [*][*]
Of this kind were the cures of diseases caused by a psora not yet
fully developed, which had been treated by my followers with
remedies which did not belong to the number of those which, later,
proved to be the chief anti-psora remedies; because these remedies
were not yet known. They had been merely treated with such medicines
as Homœopathically best covered and temporarily removed the then
apparent moderate symptoms, thus causing a kind of a cure which
brought back the manifest psora into a latent condition and thus
produced a kind of healthy condition, especially with young,
vigorous persons, such as would appear as real health to every
observer who did not examine accurately; and this state often lasted
for many years. But with chronic diseases caused by a psora already
fully developed, the medicines which were then known never sufficed
for a complete cure, any more than these same medicines suffice at
the present time.Even some gross errors of
diet, taking cold, the appearance of weather especially rough, wet and
cold or stormy, or even the approach of autumn, if ever so mild, but,
more yet, winter and a wintry spring, and then some violent exertion
of the body or mind, but particularly some shock to the health caused
by some severe external injury, or a very sad event that bowed down
the soul, repeated fright, great grief, sorrow and continuous
vexation, often caused in a weakened body the re-appearance of one or
more of the ailments which seemed to have been already overcome; and
this new condition was often aggravated by some quite new
concomitants, which if not more threatening than the former ones which
had been removed homœopathically were often just as troublesome and
now more obstinate. This would be especially the case whenever the
seemingly cured disease had for its foundation a psora which had been
more fully developed. When such a relapse would take place the
Homœopathic physician would give the remedy most fitting among the
medicines then known, as if directed against a new disease, and this
would again be attended by a pretty good success, which for the time
would again bring the patient into a better state. In the former case,
however, in which merely the troubles which seemed to have been
removed were renewed, the remedy which had been serviceable the first
time would prove less useful, and when repeated again it would help
still less. Then perhaps, even under the operation of the Homœopathic
remedy which seemed best adapted, and even where the mode of living
had been quite correct new symptoms of disease would be added which
could be removed only inadequately and imperfectly; yea, these new
symptoms were at times not at all improved, especially when some of
the obstacles above mentioned hindered the recovery.Some joyous occurrence, or an
external condition of circumstances improved by fortune, a pleasant
journey, a favorable season or a dry, uniform temperature, might
occasionally produce a remarkable pause of shorter or longer duration
in the disease of the patient, during which the Homœopath might
consider him as fairly recovered; and the patient himself, if he
good-naturedly overlooked some passable moderate ailments, might
consider himself as healthy. Still such a favorable pause would never
be of long duration, and the return and repeated returns of the
complaints in the end left even the best selected Homœopathic
remedies then known, and given in the most appropriate doses, the less
effective the oftener they were repeated. They served at last hardly
even as weak palliatives. But usually, after repeated attempts to
conquer the disease which appeared in a form always somewhat changed,
residual complaints appeared which the Homœopathic medicines hitherto
proved, though not few, had to leave uneradicated, yea, often
undiminished. Thus there ever followed varying complaints ever more
troublesome, and, as time proceeded, more threatening, and this even
while the mode of living was correct and with a punctual observance of
directions. The chronic disease could, despite all efforts, be but
little delayed in its progress by the Homœopathic physician and grew
worse from year to year.This was, and remained, the
quicker or slower process in such treatments in all non-venereal,
severe chronic diseases, even when these were treated in exact
accordance with the Homœopathic, art as hitherto known. Their
beginning was promising, the continuation less favorable, the outcome
hopeless.Nevertheless
this teaching was founded upon the steadfast pillar of truth and will
evermore be so. The attestation of its excellence, yea, of
its infallibility (so far as this can be predicated of human affairs),
it has laid before the eyes of the world through facts.Homœopathy alone
taught first of all how to heal
the well-defined idiopathic diseases, the old, smooth scarlet fever of
Sydenham, the more recent purples, whooping cough, croup, sycosis, and
autumnal dysenteries, by means of the specifically aiding Homœopathic
remedies. Even acute pleurisy, and typhous contagious epidemics must
now allow themselves to be speedily turned into health by a few small
doses of rightly-selected Homœopathic medicine.Whence then this less
favorable, this unfavorable, result of the continued treatment of the
non-venereal chronic diseases even by Homœopathy? What was the reason
of the thousands of unsuccessful endeavors to heal the other diseases
of a chronic nature so that lasting health might result? Might this be
caused, perhaps, by the still too small number of Homœopathic
remedial means that have so far been proved as to their pure action?
The followers of Homœopathy have hitherto thus consoled themselves;
but this excuse, or so-called consolation, never satisfied the founder
of Homœopathy – particularly because even the new additions of proved
valuable medicines, increasing from year to year, have not advanced
the healing of chronic (non-venereal) diseases by a single step, while
acute diseases (unless these, at their commencement, threaten
unavoidable death) are not only passably removed, by means of a
correct; application of homœopathic remedies, but with the assistance
of the never-resting, preservative vital force in our organism, find a
speedy and complete cure.Why then, cannot this vital
force, efficiently affected through Homœopathic medicine, produce any
true and lasting recovery in these chronic maladies even with the aid
of the Homœopathic remedies which best cover their present symptoms;
while this same force which is created for the restoration of our
organism is nevertheless so indefatigably and successfully active in
completing the recovery even in severe acute diseases? What is there
to prevent this?The answer to this question,
which is so natural, inevitably led me to the discovery of the nature
of these chronic diseases.To find out then the reason
why all the medicines known to Homœopathy failed to bring a real cure
in the above-mentioned diseases, and to gain an insight more nearly
correct and, if possible, quite correct, into the true nature of the
thousands of chronic diseases which still remain uncured, despite the
incontestable truth of the Homœopathic Law of Cure, this very serious
task has occupied me since the years 1816 and 1817, night and day; and
behold! the Giver of all good things permitted me within this space of
time to gradually solve this sublime problem through unremitting
thought, indefatigable inquiry, faithful observation and the most
accurate experiments made for the welfare of humanity. [*][*]
Yet I did not allow any of these unintermitted endeavors to
become known either to the world or to my followers, not, indeed,
because the ingratitude so frequently shown to me prevented me, for
I heed neither ingratitude nor persecutions on my troublous path of
life, which yet has not proved altogether joyless, because of the
great goal toward which I have striven. No, I left it unmentioned
because it is improper, yea, hurtful to speak or write of things
still immature. Not until the year I827 did I communicate the
essentials of the discovery to two of my pupils, who had been of the
greatest service to the art of Homœopathy, for their own benefit
and that of their patients, so that the whole discovery might not be
lost to the world if perchance a higher call to eternity had called
me away before the completion of the book – an event not so very
improbable in my seventy-third year.It was a continually
repeated fact that the non-venereal chronic diseases, after being time
and again removed homœopathically by the remedies fully proved up to
the present time, always returned in a more or less varied form and
with new symptoms, or reappeared annually with an increase of
complaints. This fact gave me the first clew that the Homœopathic
physician with such a chronic (non-venereal) case, yea in all cases of
(non-venereal) chronic disease, has not only to combat the disease
presented before his eyes, and must not view and treat it as if it
were a well-defined disease, to be speedily and permanently destroyed
and healed by ordinary homœopathic remedies but that he has always to
encounter only some separate fragment of a more deep-seated original
disease.The great extent of this is
shown in the new symptoms appearing from time to time; so that the
Homœopathic physician must not hope to permanently heal the separate
manifestations of this kind in the presumption, hitherto entertained,
that they are well-defined, separately existing diseases which can be
healed permanently and completely. He,
therefore, must first find out as far as possible the whole extent of
all the accidents and symptoms belonging, to the unknown primitive
malady before he can hope to discover one or more medicines
which may homœopathically cover the whole of the original disease by
means of its peculiar symptoms. By this method he may then be able
victoriously to heal and wipe out the malady in its whole extent,
consequently also its separate members; that is, all the fragments of
a disease appearing in so many various forms.But that the original malady
sought for must be also of a miasmatic,
chronic nature clearly appeared to me from this circumstance, that
after it has once advanced and developed to a certain degree it can
never be removed by the strength of any robust constitution, it can
never be overcome by the most wholesome diet and order of life, nor
will it die out of itself. But it is evermore aggravated, from year to
year, through a transition into other and more serious symptoms, [*]
even till the end of man’s life, like every other chronic, miasmatic
sickness; e. g., the venereal bubo
which has not been healed from within by mercury, its specific remedy,
but has passed over into venereal disease. This latter, also never
passes away of itself, but, even with the most correct mode of life
and with the most robust bodily constitution, increases every year and
unfolds evermore into new and worse symptoms, and this, also, to the
end of man’s life.[*]
Not unfrequently phthisis passes over into insanity; dried-up
ulcers into dropsy or apoplexy; intermittent fever into asthma;
affections of the abdomen into pains in the joints or paralysis;
pains in the limbs into hæmorrhage, etc., and it was not difficult
to discover that the later must also have their foundation in the
original malady and can only be a part of a far greater whole.I had come thus far in my
investigations and observations with such non-venereal patients, when
I discovered, even in the beginning, that the obstacle to the cure of
many cases which seemed delusively like specific, well-defined
diseases, and yet could not be cured in a Homœopathic manner with the
then proved medicines, seemed very often to lie in a former eruption
of itch, which was not unfrequently confessed; and the beginning of
all the subsequent sufferings usually dated from that time. So also
with similar chronic patients who did not confess such an infection,
or, what was probably more frequent, who had, from inattention, not
perceived it,. or, at least, could not remember it. After a careful
inquiry it usually turned out that little traces of it (small pustules
of itch, herpes, etc.) had showed themselves with them from time to
time, even if but rarely, as an indubitable sign of a former infection
of this kind.These circumstances, in
connection with the fact that innumerable observations of physicians, [*]
and not infrequently my own experience, had shown that an eruption of
itch suppressed by faulty practice or one which had disappeared from
the skin through other means was evidently followed, in persons
otherwise healthy, by the same or similar symptoms; these
circumstances, I repeat, could leave no doubt in my mind as to the
internal foe which I had to combat in my medical treatment of such
cases.[*]
So also, more lately, VON AUTENRIETH (in Tübinger
Blätter fur Naturwissenschaft and Arzneikunde, 2 vol.,
2d part.Gradually I discovered more
effective means against this original malady that caused so many
complaints; against this malady which may be called by the general
name of Psora; i. e., against the
internal itch disease with or without its attendant eruption on the
skin. It then became manifest to me, through the aid afforded when
using these medicines in similar chronic diseases, in which the
patient was unable to show a like cause, that also these cases in
which the patient remembered no infection of this kind were of
necessity caused by a Psora with
which he had been infected, perhaps, even in his cradle, or in some
other way that had escaped his memory; and this often received
corroboration on a more careful inquiry with the parents or aged
relatives.Most painstaking observations
as to the aid afforded by the anti-psoric remedies which were added in
the first of these eleven years have taught me evermore, how
frequently not only the moderate, but also the more severe and the
most severe, chronic diseases are of this origin. This observation
taught me that not only most of the many cutaneous eruptions which Willan
distinguishes with such extreme care from one another, and which have
received separate names, but also almost all adventitious formations,
from the common wart on the finger up to the largest sarcomatous
tumor, from the malformations of the finger-nails up to the swellings
of the bones and the curvature of the spine, and many other softenings
and deformities of the bones, both at an early and at a more advanced
age, are caused by the Psora. So,
also, frequent epistaxis, the accumulation of blood in the veins of
the rectum and the anus, discharges of blood from the same (blind or
flowing piles), hæmoptysis, hematemesis, hematuria, and deficient as
well as too frequent menstrual discharges, night-sweats of several
years’ duration, parchment-like dryness of the skin, diarrhœa of many
years, standing, as well as permanent constipation and difficult
evacuation of the bowels, long-continued erratic pains, convulsions
occurring repeatedly for a number of years, chronic ulcers and
inflammations, sarcomatous enlargements and tumors, emaciation,
excessive sensitiveness as well as deficiencies in the senses of
seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling; excessive as well as
extinguished sexual desire; diseases of the mind and of the soul, from
imbecility up to ecstasy, from melancholy up to raging insanity;
swoons and vertigo; the so-called diseases of the heart; abdominal
complaints and all that is comprehended under hysteria and
hypochondria – in short, thousands of tedious ailments of humanity
called by pathology with various names, are, with few exceptions, true
descendants of this many-formed Psora
alone. I was thus instructed by my continued observations, comparisons
and experiments in the last years, that the ailments and infirmities
of body and soul which, in their manifest complaints, differ, so
radically and which, with different patients, appear so very unlike
(if they do not belong to the two venereal diseases, syphilis
and sycosis), are but partial
manifestations of the ancient miasma of leprosy and itch; i.
e., merely descendants of one and the same vast original
malady, the almost innumerable symptoms of which form but one whole
and are to be regarded and to be medicinally treated as the parts of
one and the same disease in the same way as in a great epidemic of
typhus fever. Thus in the year 1813 one patient would be prostrated
with only a few symptoms of this plague, a second patient showed only
a few but different ailments, while a third, fourth, etc., would
complain of still other ailments belonging to this epidemic disease,
while they were, nevertheless, all sick with one and the same
pestilential fever, and the entire and complete image of the typhus
fever reigning at the time could Only be obtained by gathering
together the symptoms of all, or at feast of many of these patients.
Then the one or two remedies, [*]
found to be Homœopathic, healed the whole epidemy, and therefore
showed themselves specifically helpful with every patient, though the
one might be suffering from symptoms differing from those of others,
and almost all seemed to be suffering from different diseases.[*]
In the typhus of 1813 bryonia
and rhus toxicodendron were the
specific remedies for all the patients.
Just so, only upon a far
larger scale, it is with the Psora,
this fundamental disease of so many chronic maladies, each of which
seems to be essentially different from the others, but really is not;
as may readily be seen from the agreement of several symptoms common
to them which appear as the disease runs its course, and also from
their being healed through the same remedy.All chronic diseases of
mankind, even those left to themselves, not aggravated by a perverted
treatment, show, as said, such a constancy and perseverance, that as
soon as they have developed and have not been thoroughly healed by the
medical art, they evermore increase with the years, and during the
whole of man’s lifetime; and they cannot be diminished by the strength
belonging even to the most robust constitution. Still less can they be
overcome and extinguished. Thus they never pass away of themselves,
but increase and are aggravated even till death. They must therefore
all have for their origin and foundation constant chronic miasms,
whereby their parasitical existence in the human organism is enabled
to continually rise and grow. [*][*]
See Organon of the Healing Art,
fifth edition, 1834, § 100 sqq.In Europe and also on the
other continents so far as it is known, according to all
investigations, only three chronic miasms are found, the diseases
caused by which manifest themselves through local symptoms, and from
which most, if not all, the chronic diseases originate; namely, first,
SYPHILIS, which I have also called
the venereal change disease; then SYCOSIS,
or the fig-wart disease, and
finally the chronic disease which lies at the foundation of the
eruption of itch; i. e., the PSORA;
which I shall treat of first as the most important.PSORA
is that most ancient, most universal, most
destructive, and yet most
misapprehended chronic miasmatic disease which for many
thousands of years has disfigured and tortured mankind, and which
during the last centuries has become the mother of all the thousands
of incredibly various (acute and) chronic (non-venereal) diseases, by
which the whole civilized human race on the inhabited globe is being
more and more afflicted.PSORA
is the oldest miasmatic chronic
disease known to us. just as tedious as syphilis and sycosis, and
therefore not to be extinguished before the last breath of the longest
human life, unless it is thoroughly cured, since not even the most
robust constitution is able to destroy and extinguish it by its own
proper strength, Psora, or the
Itch disease, is beside this the oldest
and most hydra-headed of all the
chronic miasmatic diseases.In the many thousands of
years during which it may have afflicted mankind, -for the most
ancient history of the most ancient people does not reach to its
origin,- it has so much increased in the extent of its pathological
manifestations -an extent which may to some degree be explained by its
increased development during such all inconceivable number of years in
so many millions of organisms through which it has passed,- that its
secondary symptoms are hardly to be numbered. And, if we except those
diseases which have, been created by a perverse medical practice or by
deleterious labors in quicksilver, lead, arsenic, etc., which appear
in the common pathology under a hundred proper names as supposedly
separate and well-defined diseases (and also those springing from syphilis
and the still rarer ones springing from sycosis),
all the remaining natural chronic diseases, whether with names or
without them, find in PSORA their
real origin, their only source.
Copyright © Médi-T
2006