The Chronic
Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homœopathic Cure.
by Dr Samuel Hahnemann
Presented By Médi-T
(Page 100 … 109)
But even if, by any means,
such a secondary eruption might, after a fashion, be produced, and
even were it in our power to retain it on the skin for a longer
period, we cannot at all count on it for assistance in the cure of the
whole psoric malady. [*]It remains, therefore, an
established truth, that the cure of the entire destructive Psora
through antipsoric remedies is effected most easily only while the
original eruption of itch is still present. From this it again appears
how unconscionable it is of the allopathic physicians, to destroy the
primitive itch eruption through local applications instead of
completely eradicating this grave disease from the whole living
organism by a cure from within, which at that stage is as yet very
easy, and by thus choking off in advance all the wretched consequences
that we must expect from this malady if uncured; i.e.,
all the secondary, chronic, nameless sufferings which follow it.—–
[*]
There was a time when, not yet fully convinced of this fact, I
thought that the cure of the entire psora might be rendered easier
by an artificial renewal of the cutaneous eruption effected through
a sort of checking of the perspiratory function of the skin, so as
to excite it homœopathically to the reproduction of the eruption.
For this purpose I found most serviceable the wearing of a plaster
mostly on the back (but where practicable also on other portions of
the skin); the plaster was prepared by gently
heating six ounces of Burgundy pitch, into which, after removing it
from the fire, an ounce of turpentine produced from the larch-tree
(called Venetian turpentine) was stirred until it was perfectly
mixed. A portion of this was spread on a chamois skin (as being the
softest), and laid on while still warm. Instead of this, there might
also be used so-called tree-wax (made of yellow wax and common
turpentine), or also taffeta covered with elastic resin; showing
that the itching eruption evolved is not due to any irritation
caused by the substance applied; nor does the psora first mentioned
cause either eruption or itching on the skin of a person who is not
psoric. I discovered that this method is the most effective to cause
such an activity of the skin. Yet despite of all the patience of the
sick persons (no matter how much they might internally be affected
with the psora), I never could evolve a complete eruption of itch,
least of all one that would remain for a time on the skin. What
could be effected was only that some itching pustules appeared,
which soon vanished again, when the plaster was left off. More
frequently there ensued a moist soreness of the skin, or at best a
more or less violent, itching of the skin, which in rare cases
extended also to the other parts not covered by the plaster. This,
indeed, would cause for a time a striking alleviation of even the
most severe chronic diseases flowing from a psoric source; e.g.,
suppuration of the lungs. But this much could not be attained on the
skin of many patients (frequently all that could be attained was a
moderate or small amount of itching), or again, if I could produce a
violent itching, this frequently became too unbearable for the
patient to sustain it for a time sufficient to produce an internal
cure. When the plaster then was removed in order to relieve him,
even the most violent itching, together with the eruption present,
disappeared very soon, and the cure had not been essentially
advanced by it; this confirms the observation made above, that the
eruption if evolved a second time (and so also the itching
reproduced) had not by any means the full characteristics of the
eruption of the itch which had originally been repressed, and was
therefore of little assistance in the real advancement of a thorough
cure of the psora through internal remedies, while the little aid
afforded loses all value owing to the often unbearable infliction of
the artificially produced eruption and itching of the skin, and the
weakening of the whole body which is inseparable from the
titillating pain.The excuse of the private
physician (for the physician at the hospital has no excuse at all)
amounts to nothing. He will say, indeed: “If it is not known
-and hardly ever does it become demonstrably known- where, when, at
what occasion and from what person avowedly suffering from itch the
infection has been derived, then he could not discover from the
present, and often insignificant little eruption whether it was real
itch; so he was not to be blamed for the evil consequences, if he
supposed it to be something else and endeavored to remove it from the
skin as soon as possible by a lotion of lead solution, or an ointment
of cadmia, or white precipitate of mercury, according to the wishes of
the aristocratic parents.”This excuse, as above said,
amounts to nothing. For, first of
all, no cutaneous eruption of whatever kind
it may be, ought to be expelled through external means by
any physician who wishes to act conscientiously and rationally. [*]
The human skin does not evolve of itself, without the co-operation of
the rest of the living whole, any eruption, nor does it become sick in
any way, without being induced and compelled to it by the general
diseased state, by the lack of normality in the whole organism. In
every case there is at the bottom a disorderly state of the whole
internal living organism, which state must first be considered; and
therefore the eruption is only to be removed by internal healing and
curative remedies which change the state of the whole; then also the
eruption which is based on the internal disease will be cured and
healed of itself, without the help of any external remedy, and
frequently more quickly than it could be done by external remedies.Secondly,
even if the physician should not have presented to him the original,
undestroyed form of the eruption, – i.e.,
the pustule of itch which in the beginning is transparent, then
quickly filled with pus, with a narrow red margin all around it, –
even if the eruption should consist only of small granules like the
miliary eruption, or appear like scattered little pimples or little
scabs, still he cannot for a moment be in doubt as to whether the
eruption is itch, if the child or even the suckling only a few days
old, uninterruptedly rubs and scratches the spot, or, if it is an
adult, when he complains of the titillation of a voluptuously itching
eruption (or even only a few pimples) which is unbearable without
scratching, especially in the evening and at night, and when this is
followed by a burning pain. In such a case we can never doubt as to
the infection with itch, though in genteel and wealthy families we can
seldom secure the information and the certainty as to how, where and
from whom the infection has been derived; for there are innumerable
imperceptible occasions whereby this infection may be received, as
taught above.—–
[*]
See “Organon of the Healing Art,”
fifth edition, §187-203.Now when the family physician
notices this in time, then without any external application, the
simple dose of one or two pills as large as poppy-seeds, moistened
with the potentized sulphur in alcohol, as described below, will fully
and abundantly suffice to cure a child and to deliver it from the
entire disease of itch, both the eruption and the internal itch malady
(psora).The homœopathic physician in
his private practice seldom gets to see and to treat an eruption of
itch spread over a considerable part of the skin and coming from a
fresh infection. The patients on account of the intolerable itching
either apply to some old woman, or to the druggist or the barber, who,
one and all, come to their aid with a remedy which, as they suppose,
is immediately effective (e.g.,
lard mixed with flowers of sulphur). Only in the practice of the
barracks, of prisons, hospitals, penitentiaries and orphan asylums
those infected have to apply to the resident physician, if the surgeon
of the house does not anticipate him.Even in the most ancient
times when itch occurred, for it did not everywhere degenerate into
leprosy, it was acknowledged that there was a sort of specific virtue
against itch in sulphur; but they
knew of no other way of applying it, but to destroy the itch through
an external application of it, even as is done now by the greater part
of the modem physicians of the old school. A. C. Celsus has several
ointments and salves (V. 28) some of which consist merely of sulphur
mixed with tar, while others contain also compounds of copper and
other substances; these he prescribes for the expulsion of itch, and
this he supposes to be its cure. So also the most ancient physicians,
like the moderns, prescribed for their itch patients baths of warm
sulphurous mineral water. Such patients are usually also delivered
from their eruption by these external sulphur remedies. But that their
patients were not really cured thereby, became manifest, even to them,
from the more severe ailments that followed, such as general dropsy,
with which an Athenian was afflicted when he drove out his severe
eruption of itch by bathing in the warm sulphur baths of the island of
Melos (now called Milo), and of which he died. This is recorded by the
author of Book V. Epidemion, which has been received among the
writings of Hippocrates (some three hundred years before Celsus).Internally the ancient
physicians gave no sulphur in itch, because they, like the moderns,
did not see that this miasmatic disease was, at the same time and
especially, an internal disease.Modern physicians have never
given sulphur only, and
internally, to cure the itch, because they have never recognized the
itch-disease as being also an internal and,
indeed, chiefly internal disease.
They only gave it in connection with the external means of driving
away the itch, and, indeed, in doses which would act as purgatives, –
ten, twenty and thirty grains at a dose, frequently repeated, – so
that it never became manifest how useful or how injurious this
internal application of such large doses, in connection with the
external application, had been; at least
the whole itch-disease (psora) could never
be thoroughly healed thereby. The external driving out of the eruption
was simply advanced by it as by any other purgative, and with the same
injurious effects as if no sulphur at all had been used internally.
For even if sulphur is used only internally, but in the above
described large doses, without any external destructive means, it can
never thoroughly heal a psora; partly because in order to cure as an
antipsoric and homœopathic medicine, it must be given only in the
smallest doses of a potentized preparation, while in larger and more
frequent doses the crude sulphur [*]
in some cases increases the malady or at least adds a new
malady; partly because the vital force expels it as a violently
aggressive remedy through purging stools or by means of vomiting,
without having put its healing power to any use.[*]
Here it is proper to subjoin the words of an impartial and
even practical connoisseur of Homœopathy, the deep-thinking,
many-sided scholar and indefatigable investigator of truth, Count
Buquoy, in his Anregungen für ph. w.
Forschungen (Leipzig, 1825, p. 386 sgg.). After assuming
that a drug, which in a normal state of health causes the symptoms a,
b, g, – in analogy with other physiological phenomena,
produces the symptoms x, y, z, which
appear in an abnormal state of health – can act upon this abnormal
state in such a way that the disease-symptoms x,
y, z, are transformed into the drug symptoms a,
b, g, which latter have the peculiar characteristic of
temporariness or transitoriness; he then continues: “This
transitory character belongs to the group of symptoms of the
medicine a, b, g, which is substituted
for the group of symptoms belonging to the disease, merely because
the medicine is used in an extraordinarily
small dose. Should the homœopathic physician give the
patient too large a dose of the homœopathic remedy indicated, the
disease x, y, z may indeed be transformed into the other, i.e.,
into a, b, g but the new disease now
just sits as firmly fixed as the former x, y,
z; so that the organism can just as
little free itself from the disease a, b, g, as it was able
to throw off the original disease x, y, z.
If a very large dose is given, then a new
often very dangerous disease is
produced, or the organism does its utmost to free itself very
quickly from the poison (through diarrhœa, vomiting, etc.)”.Now if, as experience
teaches, not even the fresh itch-disease which is the most easy to
cure of all, i.e., the internal,
recently formed psora together with the external, recent eruption, can
be thoroughly healed by external applications accompanied with large
quantities of flowers of sulphur, it may easily be seen, that the
psora, after it has been deprived of its eruption and has become
merely internal and inveterate, having developed secondary ailments
and thus having change into chronic diseases of various kinds, for the
same reason can be just as little cured by a quantity of sulphur
flowers, or by a number of baths in sulphurous mineral waters, or on
the other hand by simultaneously drinking the same or a similar water;
in a word, it cannot be cured by a superabundance and frequent
repetition of this remedy, although it is of itself antipsoric. [*]
It is true that many such chronic patients by the first treatment at
the baths seem to get rid for some time of the symptoms of their
disease (therefore we see an incredible throng of many thousands,
suffering from innumerable different chronic ailments at Teplitz,
Baden, Aix-la-Chapelle, Neundorf, Warmbrunn, etc.); yet they are not
on that account restored to health, but instead of the original
chronic (psoric) disease, they have for a time come under the dominion
of a sulphur-disease (another, perhaps more bearable, malady). This in
time passes away, when the psora again lifts its head, either with the
same morbid symptoms as before, or with others similar but gradually
more troublesome than the first, or with symptoms developing in nobler
parts of the organism. Ignorant persons will rejoice in the latter
case, that their former disease at least has passed away, and they
hope that the new disease also may be removed by another journey to
the same baths. They do not know, that their changed morbid state is
merely a transformation of the same psora; but they always find out by
experience, that their second tour to the baths causes even less
alleviation, or, indeed, if the sulphur-baths are used in still
greater number, that the second trial causes aggravation.Thus we see that either the
excessive use of sulphur in all its forms, or the frequent repetition
of its use by allopathic physicians in the treatment of a multitude of
chronic diseases (the secondary psoric ailments) have taken away from
it all value and use; and we may well assert that, to this day, hardly
anything but injury has been done by allopathic physicians through the
use of sulphur.—–
[*]
Used in small doses, sulphur as one of the antipsoric
remedies will not fail to make a brief beginning of a cure of the
chronic (non-venereal and therefore psoric) diseases. I know a
physician in Saxony who gained a great reputation by merely adding
to his prescriptions in nearly all chronic diseases flowers of
sulphur, and this without knowing a reason for it. This in
the beginning of such treatments is wont to produce a
strikingly beneficent effect, but of course only
in the beginning, and therefore after that his help was at an end.)But even supposing that
anyone should desire to make the only correct use of sulphur in this
kind of disease, it will seldom be possible to do this with the same
desired success as where the homœopathic physician finds a recent
case of the itch-disease with its still existing eruption. Even when,
owing to its undeniable anti-psoric effects, sulphur may be able of
itself to make the beginning of a cure, after the external expulsion
of the eruption, either with the still hidden and latent psora or when
this has more or less developed and broken out into its varied chronic
diseases, it can nevertheless be but rarely made use of for this
purpose, because its powers have usually been already exhausted,
because it has been given to the patient already before by allopathic
physicians for one purpose or another, perhaps has been given already
repeatedly; but sulphur, like most of the antipsoric remedies in the
treatment of a developed psora that has become chronic, can hardly be
used three or four times (even after the intervening use of other
antipsoric remedies) without causing the cure to retrograde.The
cure of an old psora that has been deprived of its eruption, whether
it may be latent and quiescent, or already broken out into chronic
diseases, can never be accomplished with sulphur alone, nor
with sulphur-baths either natural or artificial.Here I may mention the
curious circumstance that in general – with the exception of the
recent itch-disease still attended with its unrepressed cutaneous
eruption, and which is so easily cured from within [*]
– every other psoric diathesis, i.e.,
the psora that is still latent within, as well as the psora that has
developed into one of the innumerable chronic diseases springing from
it, is very seldom cured by any single anti-psoric remedy, but
requires the use of several of these remedies -in the worst cases the
use of quite a number of them- one after the other, for its perfect
cure.—–
[*]
Recent itch-disease with its still present cutaneous eruption has
been cured at times without any external remedy by even one
very small dose of a properly potentized preparation of sulphur and
thus within two, three or four weeks; once a dose of 1/2 grain of
carbo vegetabilis potentized a million fold sufficed for a family of
seven persons, and three times a like dose of as highly potentized
sepia was sufficient.This circumstance need not
astonish us when we consider that the psora is a chronic miasma of
quite peculiar and especial character which in several thousands of
years has passed through several millions of human organisms, and must
have assumed such a vast extension of varied symptoms, -the elements
of those innumerable, chronic, non-venereal ailments, under which
mankind now groans,- and could transmute itself into such an
indefinite multitude of forms differing from one another as it
gradually ultimated itself in the various bodily constitutions of
individual men who differed from one another in their domiciles, their
climatic peculiarities, their education, habits, occupations, [*]
modes of life and of diet, and was moulded by varying bodily and
psychic relations. It is, therefore, not strange, that one single and
only medicine is insufficient to heal the entire psora and all its
forms, and that it requires several medicines in order to respond, by
the artificial morbid effects peculiar to each, to the unnumbered host
of psora symptoms, and thus to those of all chronic (non venereal)
diseases, and to the entire psora, and to do this in a curative
homœopathic manner. [**]It is only, therefore, as
already mentioned, when the eruption of itch is still in its prime and
the infection is in consequence still recent, that the complete cure
can be effected by sulphur alone, and then at times with but a single
dose. I leave it undecided, whether this can be done in every case of
itch still in full eruption on the skin, because the ages of the
eruption of itch infecting patients is quite various. For if the
eruption has been on the skin for some time (although it may not have
been treated with external repressive remedies) it will of itself
begin to recede gradually from the skin. Then the internal psora has
already in part gained the upper hand; the cutaneous eruption is then
no more so completely vicarious, and ailments of another kind appear,
partly as the signs of a latent psora, partly as chronic diseases
developed from the internal psora. In such a case sulphur alone (as
little as any other single antipsoric remedy) is usually no longer
sufficient to produce a complete cure, and the other antipsoric
remedies, one or another according to the remaining symptoms, must be
called upon to give their homœopathic aid.The homœopathic medical
treatment of the countless chronic diseases (non-venereal and
therefore of psoric origin) agrees essentially in its general features
with the homœopathic treatment of human diseases as taught in the Organon
of the Art of Healing; I shall now indicate what is
especially to be considered in the treatment of chronic diseases.—–
[*]
I.e., occupations which called
more fully into play one or another of the body, one or another
function of the spirit and mind.[**]
I refrain from hinting through what exertions and through how many
careful observations, investigations, reflections and varied
experiments I have finally succeeded after eleven years in filling
up the great chasm in the edifice of the homœopathic healing art,
the cure of the innumerable chronic diseases, and thus in completing
as far as possible the blessings which this art has in store for
suffering humanity.As to the diet
and mode of living of patients of this kind I shall only
make some general remarks, leaving the special application in any
particular case to the judgment of the homœopathic practitioner. Of
course everything that would hinder the cure must also in these cases
be removed. But since we have here to treat lingering, sometimes very
tedious diseases which cannot be quickly removed, and since we often
have cases of persons in middle life and also in old age, in various
relations of life which can seldom be totally changed, either in the
case of rich people or in the case of persons of small means, or even
with the poor, therefore limitations and modifications of the strict
mode of life as regularly prescribed by Homœopathy must be allowed,
in order to make possible the cure of such tedious diseases with
individuals so very different. A strict, homœopathic diet and mode of
living does not cure chronic
patients as our opponents pretend in order to diminish the merits of
Homœopathy, but the main cause is the medical treatment. This may be
seen in the case of the many patients who trusting these false
allegations have for years observed the most strict homœopathic diet
without being able thereby to diminish appreciably their chronic
disease; this rather increasing in spite of the diet, as all diseases
of a chronic miasmatic nature do from their nature.Owing to these causes,
therefore, and in order to make the cure possible, the homœopathic
practitioner must yield to circumstances in his prescriptions as to diet
and mode of living, and in so
doing he will much more surly, and therefore more completely, reach
the aim of healing, than by an obstinate insistence on strict rules
which in many cases cannot be obeyed.The daily laborer, if his
strength allows, should continue his labor; the artisan his handiwork;
the farmer, so far as he is able, his field work; the mother of the
family her domestic occupations according to her strength; only labors
that would interfere with the health of healthy persons should be
interdicted. This must be left to the intelligence of the rational
physician.The class of men who are
usually occupied, not with bodily labor, but with fine work in their
rooms, usually with sedentary work, should be directed during their
cure to walk more in the open air, without, on that account, setting
their work altogether aside.Persons belonging to the
higher classes should also be urged to take walks more than is their
custom. The physician may allow this class the innocent amusement of
moderate and becoming dancing amusements in the country that are
reconcilable with a strict diet, also social meetings with
acquaintances, where conversation is the chief amusement; he will not
keep them from enjoying harmless music or from listening to lectures
which are not too fatiguing; he can permit the theatre only
exceptionally, but he can never allow the playing of cards. The
physician will moderate too frequent riding and driving, and should
know how to banish intercourse which should prove to be morally and
psychically injurious, as this is also physically injurious. The
flirtations and empty excitations of sensuality between the sexes, the
reading of indelicate novels and poems of a like character, as well as
superstitious and enthusiastic books, are to be altogether
interdicted. [*]Scholars ought also to be
induced to (moderately) exercise in the open air, and in bad weather
to do some light mechanical work in doors; but during the medical
treatment mental occupation should be limited to work from memory,
since straining the head by reading is hardly ever to be allowed, or
at least only with great limitation and a strict definition as to the
quantity and quality of what is read, i.e., in treating any of the
more severe chronic diseases. In mental disorders it can never be
allowed.All classes of chronic
patients must be forbidden the use of any domestic remedies or the use
of any medicines on their own account. With the higher classes,
perfumeries, scented waters, tooth-powders and other medicines for the
teeth must also be forbidden. If the patient has been accustomed for a
long time to woollen under-clothing, the homœopathic physician cannot
suddenly make a change; but as the disease diminishes the woollen
under-garments may in warm weather be first changed to cotton and
then, in warm weather, the patient can pass to linen. Fontanelles can
be stopped, in chronic diseases of any moment, only when the internal
cure has already made progress, especially with patients of advanced
age.The physician cannot yield to
the request of patients for the continuation of their customary
home-baths; but a quick ablution, as much as cleanliness may demand
from time to time, may be allowed; nor can he permit any venesection
or cupping, however much the patient may declare that he has become
accustomed thereto.—–
[*]
Physicians frequently wish to assume
importance by forbidding without exception all sexual intercourse to
chronic patients who are married. But if both parties are able and
disposed to it, such an interdict is, to say the least, ridiculous,
as it neither can nor will be obeyed (without causing a greater
misfortune in the family). No legislature should give laws that
cannot be kept nor controlled, or which would cause even greater
mischief if kept. If one party is incapable of sexual intercourse
this of itself will stop such intercourse. But of all functions in
marriage such intercourse is what may least be commanded or
forbidden. Homœopathy only interferes in this matter through
medicines, so as to make the party that is incapable of sexual
intercourse capable of it, through antipsoric (or anti-syphilitic)
remedies, or on the other hand to reduce an excitable consort’s
morbidity to its natural tone.As to diet,
all classes of men who wish to be cured of a lingering disease; can
suffer some limitation, if the chronic disease does not consist of an
ailment of the abdomen; with the lower classes there need to be no
very strict limitations, especially if the patient is able to remain
at work in his trade, thus giving motion to the body. The poor man can
recover health even with a diet of salt and bread, and neither the
moderate use of potatoes, flour-porridge nor fresh cheese will binder
his recovery; only let him limit the condiments of onions and pepper
with his meagre diet.He who cares for his recovery
can find dishes, even at the king’s table, which answer all the
requirements of a natural diet .Most difficult for a
homœopathic physician is the decision as to drinks. Coffee has in
great part the injurious effects on the health of body and soul which
I have described in my little book (Wirkungen
des Kaffees [Effects of Coffee], Leipzig, 1803); but it has
become so much of a habit and a necessity to the greater part of the
so-called enlightened nations that it will be as difficult to
extirpate as prejudice and superstition, unless the homœopathic
physician in the cure of chronic diseases insists on a general,
absolute interdict. Only young people up to the twentieth year, or at
most up to the thirtieth, can be suddenly deprived of it without any
particular disadvantage; but with persons over thirty and forty years,
if they have used coffee from their childhood, it is better to propose
to discontinue it gradually and every day to drink somewhat less; when
lo and behold! most of them leave it off at once, and they will do so
without any peculiar trouble (except, perhaps, for a few days at the
commencement). As late as six years ago I still supposed that older
persons who are unwilling to do without it, might be allowed to use it
in a small quantity. But I have since then become convinced that even
a long-continued habit cannot make it harmless, and as the physician
can only permit what is best for his patient, it must remain as an
established rule that chronic patients must altogether give up this
part of their diet, which is insidiously injurious; and this the
patients, high or low, who have the proper confidence in their
physician, when it is properly represented to them, almost without
exception, do willingly and gladly, to the great improvement of their
health. Rye or wheat, roasted like coffee in a drum and then boiled
and prepared like coffee, has both in smell and in taste much
resemblance to coffee; and rich and poor are using this substitute
willingly in several countries.
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2006