The Chronic
Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homœopathic Cure.
by Dr Samuel Hahnemann
Presented By Médi-T
(Page 80 … 89)
Cure
of the Chronic Diseases.
CURE
We now proceed to the medical
Homœopathic treatment of the illimitably large number of chronic
diseases, which, after the above gained knowledge of their threefold
nature, has not, indeed, become easy, but -what without this knowledge
was before impossible- has at last become possible,
since the homœopathically specific remedies for each one of these
three different miasmata have in great part been discovered.The first two miasmata, which
cause by far the smaller part of the chronic diseases, the venereal
chancre-disease (syphilis) and the figwart-disease
(sycosis), with their sequelæ, we will treat first, in
order that we may have a free path to the therapeutics of the
immeasurably greater number of the various chronic diseases which
spring from Psora.
SYCOSIS.
First, then, concerning
sycosis, as being that miasma which has produced by far the fewest
chronic diseases, and has only been dominant from time to time. This figwart-disease,
which in later times, especially during the French war, in the years
1809-1814, was so widely spread, but which has since showed itself
more and more rarely, was treated almost always, in an inefficient and
injurious manner, internally with mercury, because it was considered
homogeneous with the venereal chancre-disease; but the excrescences on
the genitals were treated by Allopathic physicians always in the most
violent external way by cauterizing, burning and cutting, or by
ligatures. These excrescences usually first manifest themselves on the
genitals, and appear usually, but not always, attended with a sort of
gonorrhœa [*] from the
urethra, several days or several weeks, even many weeks after
infection through coition; more rarely they appear dry and like warts,
more frequently soft, spongy, emitting a specifically fetid fluid
(sweetish and almost like herring-brine), bleeding easily, and in the
form of a coxcomb or a cauliflower (brassica
botrytes). These, with males, sprout forth on the glans and
on, or below, the prepuce, but with women, on the parts surrounding
the pudenda; and the pudenda themselves, which are then swollen, are
covered often by a great number of them. When these are violently
removed, the natural, proximate effect is, that they will usually come
forth again, usually to be subjected again, in vain, to a similar,
painful, cruel treatment. But even if they could be rooted out in this
way, it would merely have the consequence, that the figwart-disease,
after having been deprived of the, local symptom which acts
vicariously for the internal ailment, would appear [**]
in other and much worse ways, in secondary ailments; for the
figwart-miasm, which in the whole organism, has been in no way
diminished, either by the external destruction of the above-mentioned
excrescences, or by the mercury which has been used internally, and
which is in no way appropriate to sycosis. Besides the undermining of
the general health by mercury, which in this disease can only do
injury, and which is given mostly in very large doses and in the most
active preparations, similar excrescent then break out in other parts
of the body, either whitish, spongy, sensitive, flat elevations, in
the cavity of the mouth on the tongue, the palate and the lips, or as
large, raised, brown and dry tubercles in the axillæ, on the neck, on
the scalp, etc., or there arise other ailments of the body, of which I
shall only mention the contraction of the tendons of the flexor
muscles, especially of the fingers.[*]
Usually in gonorrhœa of this kind, the discharge is from the
beginning thickish, like pus; micturition is less difficult, but the
body of the penis swollen somewhat hard; the penis is also in some
cases covered on the back with glandular tubercles, and very painful
to the touch.[**]
The miasm of the other common gonorrhœas seems not to penetrate the
whole organism, but only to locally stimulate the urinary organs.
They yield either to a dose of one drop of fresh parsley-juice, when
this is indicated by a frequent urgency to urinate, or a small dose
of cannabis, of cantharides, or of the copaiva balm, according to
their different constitution and the other ailments attending it.
These should, however, be always used in the higher and
dynamizations (potencies), unless a psora, slumbering in the body of
the patient, has been developed by means of a strongly affecting,
irritating or weakening treatment by Allopathic physicians. In such
a case frequently secondary gonorrhœas remain, which can only be
cured by an anti-psoric treatment.The gonorrhœa dependent on
the figwart-miasma, as well as the above-mentioned excrescences (i.e.,
the whole sycosis), are cured most surely and most thoroughly through
the internal use of Thuja, [*]
which, in this case, is Homœopathic, in a dose of a few pillets as
large as poppy seeds, moistened with the dilution potentized to the
decillionth [**] degree,
and when these have exhausted their action after fifteen, twenty,
thirty, forty days, alternating with just as small a dose of nitric
acid, diluted to the decillionth degree, which must be allowed to act
as long a time, in order to remove the gonorrhœa and the
excrescences; i.e., the whole
sycosis. It is not necessary to use any external application, except
in the most inveterate and difficult
cases, when the larger figwarts may be moistened. every day with the
mild, pure juice pressed from the green leaves of Thuja, mixed with an
equal quantity of alcohol.But if the patient was at the
same time affected with another chronic ailment, as is usual after the
violent treatment of figwarts by Allopathic physicians, then we often
find developed psora [***]
complicated with sycosis, when the psora, as is often the case, was
latent before in the patient. At times, when a badly treated case of
venereal chancre disease had preceded, both these miasmata are
conjoined in a threefold complication with syphilis. Then it is
necessary first to come to the assistance of the most afflicted part,
the psora, with the specific
anti-psoric remedies given below, and then to make use of the remedies
for sycosis, before the proper dose of the best preparation of
mercury, as will be described below, is given against the syphilis;
the same alternating treatment may be continued, until a complete cure
is effected. Only, each one of these three kinds of medicine must be
given the proper time to complete its action.—–
[*]
Materia Medica Pura, Part V.[**]
If further doses of Thuja are required, they are used most
efficiently from other potencies (viii., vi., iv., ii.), a change of
the modification of the remedy, which facilitates and strengthens
its ability of affecting the vital force.[***]
This psora is hardly ever found in its developed state (and thus
capable of entering into complication with other miasmata) with
young people who have just been infected and seized by the
figwart-disease, and who have not had to pass through the usual
mercurial treatment, which never runs its course without the most
violent assaults on the constitution; by this pernicious derangement
of the whole organism, the psora, even if slumbering ever so
soundly, will be awakened, if, as is often the case, it was present
within.In this reliable cure of
sycosis from within, no external remedy (except the juice of Thuja in
inveterate bad cases) must be applied or laid on the figwarts, only
clean, dry lint, if they are of the moist variety.
SYPHILIS.
The second chronic miasma,
which is more widely spread than the figwart-disease, and which for
three and a half [now four] centuries has been the source of many
other chronic ailments, is the miasm of the venereal disease proper,
the chancre-disease (syphilis). This disease only causes difficulties
in its cure, if it is entangled (complicated) with a psora that has
been already far developed – with sycosis it is complicated but
rarely, but then usually at the same time with psora.In the cure of the venereal
disease, three states are to be distinguished:1. When syphilis is still
alone and attended with its associated local symptom, the chancre,
or at least if this has been removed by external applications, it is
still associated with the other local symptom, which in a similar
manner acts vicariously for the internal disorder, the bubo. [*]2. When it is alone, indeed, i.e.,
without any complication with a second or third miasma, but has
already been deprived of the vicarious local symptom, the chancre (and
the bubo).3. When it is already
complicated with another chronic disease, i.e.,
with a psora already developed, while the local symptom may either be
yet present, or may have been removed by local applications.The chancre appears, after an
impure coition, usually between the seventh and fourteenth days,
rarely sooner or later, mostly on the member infected with the miasma,
first as a little pustule, which changes into an impure ulcer with
raised borders and stinging pains, which if not cured remains standing
on the same place during man’s lifetime, only increasing with the
years, while the secondary symptoms of the venereal disease, syphilis,
cannot break out as long as it exists.In order to help in such a
case, the Allopathic physician destroys this chancre, by means of
corroding, cauterizing and desiccating substances, wrongly conceiving
it to be a sore arising merely from without through a local infection,
thus holding it to be a merely local ulcer, such also it is declared
to be in their writings. They falsely suppose, that when it appears,
no internal venereal disease is as yet to be thought of, so that when
locally exterminating the chancre, they suppose that they remove all
the venereal disease from the patient at once, if only he will not
permit this ulcer to remain too long in its place, so that the
absorbent vessels do not get time to transfer the poison into the
internal organism, and so cause by delay a general infection of the
system with syphilis. They evidently do not know, that the venereal
infection of the whole body commenced with the very moment of the
impure coition, and was already completed before the appearance of the
chancre. The Allopathic doctor destroys in his blindness, through
local applications, the vicarious external symptom (the chancre
ulcer), which kind nature intended for the alleviation of the internal
extensive venereal general disease; and so he inexorably compels the
organism to replace the destroyed first substitute of the internal
venereal malady (the chancre) by a far more painful substitute, the
bubo, which hastens onward to suppuration; and when the Allopath, as
is usually the case, also drives out this bubo through his injurious
treatment, then nature finds itself compelled to develop the internal
malady through far more troublesome secondary ailments, through the
outbreak of the whole chronic syphilis, and nature accomplishes this,
though slowly, (frequently not before several months have elapsed),
but with unfailing certainty. Instead of assisting, therefore, the
Allopath does injury.—–
[*]
Very rarely the impure coition is at once
followed by the bubo alone without any preceding chancre; usually
the bubo only comes after the destruction of the chancre by local
applications, and is a very troublesome substitute for the same.
John
Hunter says: [*] “Not
one patient out of fifteen will escape syphilis, if the chancre is
destroyed by mere external applications”, and in another
passage in his book [**]
he says: “The result of destroying the chancre ever so early,
and even on the first day of its appearance, if this is effected by
local applications, was always the consequent outbreak of syphilis.”Just as emphatically Fabre
declares: [***]
“Syphilis always follows on the destruction of the chancre by
local applications. He relates that Petit
cut off a part of the labia of a woman, who had thereon for a few days
a venereal chancre; the wound healed, but syphilis, nevertheless,
broke out.”How, then, could physicians,
despite of all these facts and testimonies, close their eyes, and ears
to the truth: that the whole venereal disease (syphilis) was already
developed within, before the chancre could appear, and that it was a
most unpardonable mistake to forward the certain outbreak of the
syphilis, already present within, into the venereal disease, by
driving away and destroying the chancre by external means, and thereby
destroying the fair opportunity afforded of curing this disease in the
easiest and most convincing manner, through the internal specific
remedy, while the chancre was yet fully present! The disease is not
cured except when through the effect of the internal remedy alone, the
chancre is cured; but it is fully extinguished, as soon as through the
action of the internally operating medicine alone (without the
addition of any external remedy) the chancre is completely cured,
without leaving any trace of its former presence.—–
[*]
Abhandl. über
die vener. Krankheit (Treatise on the Venereal Disease),
Leipsic, 1787, p. 531.[**]
Abhandl. über die vener. Krankheit,
Leipsic, 1787, pp. 551-553.[***]
Fabre, Lettres, Supplément, à son traité
des maladies vénériennes. Paris, 1786.I have never, in my practice
of more than fifty years, seen any trace of the venereal disease break
out, so long as the chancre remained untouched in its place, even if
this were a space of several years (for it never passes away of
itself), and even when it had largely increased in its place, as is
natural in time with the internal augmentation of the venereal
disorder, which increase takes place in time in every chronic miasma.But whenever anyone is so
imprudent, as to destroy this vicarious local symptom, the organism is
ready to cause the internal syphilis to break out into the venereal
disease, since the general venereal disease dwells in the body from
the first moment of infection.For in the spot, into which
at the impure coition the syphilitic miasma had been first rubbed in
and had been caught, it is, in the same moment, no more local: the
whole living body has already received (perceived) its presence, the
miasma has already become the property of the whole organism. All
wiping off and washing off, however speedy, and with whatever fluid
this be done (and as we have seen, even the exsection of the part
affected), is too late -is in vain. There is not to be perceived,
indeed, any morbid transmutation in that spot during the first days,
but the specific venereal transformation takes place in the internal
of the body irresistibly, from the first moment of infection until
syphilis has developed itself throughout the whole body, and only then
(not before), nature, loaded down by the internal malady, brings forth
the local symptom peculiar to this malady, the chancre, usually in the
place first infected; and this symptom is intended by nature to soothe
the internal completed malady.Therefore also, the cure of
the venereal disease is effected most easily and in the most
convincing manner, so long as the chancre (the bubo) has not yet been
driven, out by local applications, so long as the chancre (the bubo)
still remains unchanged, as a vicarious symptom of the internal
syphilis. In this state, and especially when it is not yet complicated
with psora, it may be asserted from manifold experience and with good
reason, that
there is on earth no chronic miasma, no chronic disease springing from
a miasma, which is more curable and more easily curable than this.
Copyright © Médi-T
2006