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The
homoeopathic physician who is a master of his art, and God
be praised! there is now a not inconsiderable number of such
masters in homoeopathy, never allows a drop of blood to be
drawn from his patient; he never needs any such or similar
means of weakening the body, for such a course evermore remains
the negation of curing. Only journeymen, half homoeopaths
still, I am sorry to say, use such a contradictio in adjecto
(weakening while desiring to cure).*
Only
in the one case, where, as in many chronic diseases, the delay
in passing evacuations causes great trouble, he will permit
(in the beginning of the treatment before the antipsoric medicine
has had the time [in its after-effects] to produce improvement
in this point) if the stool is not passed for three or four
days, a clyster of clean, lukewarm water without the least
admixture, also perhaps a second, if an evacuation does not
result within a quarter of an hour. Rarely a third injection
will be needed, after waiting a third quarter of an hour.
This help which acts chiefly mechanically by expanding the
rectum, is harmless when repeated after three or four days
if it is necessary, and, as before mentioned, only at the
beginning of the treatment - for the antipsoric medicines,
among which in this respect lycopodium next to sulphur has
the pre-eminence, usually soon remove this difficulty.
The
inexcusable wasting fontanelles the homoeopathic physician
must not at once suppress, if the patient has had them for
some time (often for many years), nor before the antipsoric
treatment has already made perceptible progress, but if they
can be diminished without totally stopping them, this may
safely be done even in the beginning of the treatment.
So
also the physician should not at once discontinue the woollen
underclothing, which is said to prevent the taking of cold
and the recommendation of which is carried very far by the
ordinary physicians in default of any real assistance. Though
they are a burden to the patient, we should wait until there
is a visible improvement effected by the antipsorics which
remove the tendency to taking cold, and until the warmer season
comes. With patients who are very weakly, he should in the
beginning change to cotton shirts which rub and heat the skin
less, before requiring patients to put linen underclothing
on their skin.
-----
(*
This may well be pardoned with journeymen and beginners: but
when they assume to boast of this noviceship and declare in
public journals and books that the incidental use of blood-letting
and leeches is indispensable, yea, that it is more essentially
homoeopathic, they become ridiculous and are to be pitied
as tyros and as laboring under delusion; and their patients
also are to be pitied. Is it laziness or a haughty preference
for their old (although ruinous) allopathic routine, or is
it lack of love for their fellowman which prevents a deeper
entering into true, beneficent Homoeopathy and an elevation
into the troublesome but correct and useful selection of the
remedy homoeopathically specific in every case, and into that
mastery of Homoeopathy now no more rare?)
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For
many easily perceived reasons, but especially in order that
his delicate doses of medicine may not be interfered with
in their action, the homoeopathic physician can not in his
antipsoric treatment allow the intermediate use of any hitherto
customary domestic remedy, no perfumery of any kind, no fragrant
extracts, no smelling-salts, no Baldwin tea, or any other
herb teas, no peppermint confection, no spiced confections
or anise-sugar or stomach drops, or liqueurs, no Iceland-moss,
or spiced chocolate, no spice-drops, tooth-tinctures or tooth-powders
of the ordinary kinds, nor any of the other articles of luxury.
So-called
warm and hot baths for the sake of cleanliness, to which spoiled
patients are usually very much attached, are not to be allowed,
as they never fail to disturb the health; nor are they needed,
as a quick washing of a part or of the whole of the body with
lukewarm soap-water fully serves the purpose without doing
any injury.
At
the end of these directions for treating chronic diseases,
I recommended, in the first edition, the lightest electric
sparks as an adjuvant for quickening parts that have been
for a long time paralyzed and without sensation, these to
be used besides the antipsoric treatment. I am sorry for this
advice, and take it back, as experience has taught me, that
this prescription has nowhere been followed strictly, but
that larger electric sparks have always been used to the detriment
of patients; and yet these larger sparks have been asserted
to be very small. I, therefore, now advise against this so
easily abused remedy, especially, as we can easily remove
this appearance of enantiopathic assistance; for there is
an efficient homoeopathic local assistance for paralyzed parts
or such as are without sensation. This is found in cold water
* locally applied (at 54° Fahrenheit) from mountain-springs
and deep wells; either by pouring on these parts for one,
two or three minutes, or by douche-baths over the whole body
of one to five minutes duration, more rarely or more frequently,
even daily or oftener according to the circumstances, together
with the appropriate, internal, antipsoric treatment, sufficient
exercise in the open air, and judicious diet.
-----
(*
Water of this and a lower temperature has the primary power
of depriving the parts of the living body partly of sensation
and partly of motion, in such cases it therefore gives local
homoeopathic assistance.)
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THE
MEDICINES.
The
medicines which have been found most suitable and excellent
in chronic diseases so far, I shall present in the following
part according to their pure action on the human body, as
well those used in the treatment of the diseases of psoric
origin, as those used in syphilis and in the figwart-disease.
That
we need far fewer remedies to combat the latter than the psora
can not with any thinking man form an argument against the
chronic miasmatic nature of the latter and still less against
the fact that it is the common source of the other chronic
diseases.
The
psora, a most ancient miasmatic disease, in propagating itself
for many thousands of years through several millions of human
organisms, of which each one had its own peculiar constitution
and was exposed to very varied influences, was able to modify
itself to such a degree as to cause that incredible variety
of ailments which we see in the innumerable chronic patients,
with whom the external symptom (which acts vicariously for
the internal malady), i.e. the more or less extensive eruption
of itch, has been driven away from the skin by a fatal art,
or in whom it has disappeared of itself from the skin through
some other violent incident.
Hence
it seems to have come to pass that this half-spiritual miasma,
which like a parasite seeks to inroot its hostile life in
the human organism and to continue its life there, could develop
itself in so many ways in the many thousands of years, so
that it has even caused to spring forth and has born modified
offshoots with characteristic properties, which do not indeed
deny their descent from their stock (the common psora) but,
nevertheless, differ from one another considerably by some
peculiarities. These changes are due in some part to the varying
physical peculiarities and climatic differences of the dwelling-places
of men afflicted with the psora,*
and in part are moulded by their varying modes of life, e.g.
children in the corrupt city air develop rachitis, spina ventosa,
softening of the bones, curvatures, cancer of late bones,
tinea capitis, scrofula, ringworm; adults exhibit nervous
debility, nervous irritability, gout of the joints, etc. And
so also the other great varieties in the mode of living and
in the occupations of men with their inherited bodily constitutions
give to the psoric diseases so many modifications, that it
may easily be understood, that more numerous and more varied
remedies are needed for the extirpation of all these modifications
of the psora (antipsoric remedies).
-----
(*
E.g. the Sibbens or Rade-Syge commonly found in Norway and
in the northwest of Scotland; the Pellagra in Lombardy; the
plica polonica (Koltun, Trichiasis) in Poland and Carinthia,
the tumorous leprosy in Surinam; the raspberry-like excrescences
(Frambosia) in Guinea called yaws and in America pian; the
exhaustive fever in Hungary called Tsomor, the exhausting
malady of Virginia (asthenia Virginensium), the human degeneration
in the deep Alpine villages called cretin, the goitre in the
deep valleys and at their entrances, etc.)
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I
have often been asked by what signs a substance may beforehand
be recognized as antipsoric? But there can be no such external
visible marks in them; nevertheless while proving several
powerful substances as to their pure effects on the healthy
body, several of them by the complaints they caused showed
me their extraordinary and manifest suitableness for homoeopathic
aid in the symptoms of clearly defined psoric diseases. Some
traces of their qualities leading in this direction gave me
in advance some hint as to their probable usefulness; e.g.
the efficacy of the herb Lycopodium, much praised in Poland
for the plica polonia pointed me to the use of the pollen
of lycopodium in similar psoric ailments. The circumstance
that some haemorrhages have been arrested by large doses of
salt was another hint. So was the usefulness of Guaiacum,
Sarsaparilla and Mezereum, even in ancient times where venereal
diseases could not be healed by any amount of mercury unless
one or the other of these herbs had first removed the psora
complicated with it.
As
a rule it was developed from their pure symptoms, that most
of the earths, alkalies and acids, as well as the neutral
salts composed of them, together with several of the metals
cannot be dispensed with in curing the almost innumerable
symptoms of psora. The similarity in nature of the leading
antipsoric, sulphur, to phosphorus and other combustible substances
from the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms led to the use
of the latter, and some animal substances naturally followed
them by analogy, in agreement with experience.
Still
only those remedies have been acknowledged as antipsoric whose
pure effects on the human health gave a clear indication of
their homoeopathic use in diseases manifestly psoric, confessedly
due to infection; so that, with an enlargement of our knowledge
of their proper, pure medicinal effects, in time it may be
found necessary to include some of our other medicines among
the antipsoric remedies; although even now we can with certainty
cure, with the antipsorics now recognized, nearly all non-venereal
(psoric) chronic diseases, if the patients have not been loaded
down and spoiled through allopathic mismanagement with severe
medicine-diseases, and when their vital force has not been
depressed too low, or very unfavorable external circumstances
make the cure impossible. Nevertheless, it need not be specially
stated that the other proved, homoeopathic medicines, not
excepting mercury, cannot be dispensed with in certain states
of the psoric diseases.
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Page - 145 >-----
Homoeopathy,
by a certain treatment of the crude medicinal substances,
which had not been invented before its foundation and development,
advances them into the state of progressive and high development
of their indwelling forces, in order that it may then use
them in curing in the most perfect manner. Some of these medicines
in their crude state seem to have a very imperfect, insignificant
medicinal action (e.g. common salt and the pollen of lycopodium).
Others (e.g. gold, quartz, alumina) seem to have none at all,
but all of them become highly curative by the preparation
peculiar to Homoeopathy. Other substances, on the other hand,
in their crude state are, even in the smallest quantities,
so violent in their effects that if they touch the animal
fibre, they act upon it in a corroding and destructive manner
(e.g. arsenic and corrosive sublimate) and these medicines
are rendered by the same preparation peculiar to Homoeopathy
not only mild in their effects, but also incredibly developed
in their medicinal powers.
The
changes which take place in material substances, especially
in medicinal ones, through long-continued trituration with
a non-medicinal powder, or when dissolved, through a long-continued
shaking with a non-medicinal fluid, are so incredible, that
they approach the miraculous, and it is a cause of joy that
the discovery of these wonderful changes belongs to Homoeopathy.
Not
only, as shown elsewhere, do these medicinal substances thereby
develop their powers in a prodigious degree, but they also
change their physico-chemical demeanor in such a way, that
if no one before could ever perceive in their crude form any
solubility in alcohol or water, after this peculiar transmutation
they become wholly soluble in water as well as in alcohol
- a discovery invaluable to the healing art.
The
brown-black juice of the marine animal Sepia, which was formerly
only used for drawing and painting, is in its crude state
soluble only in water, not in alcohol; but by such a trituration
it becomes soluble also in alcohol.
The
yellow Petroleum only allows something to be extracted from
it through alcohol when it is adulterated with ethereal vegetable
oil; but in its pure state while crude it is soluble neither
in water nor in alcohol (nor in ether). By trituration it
becomes soluble in both substances.
-----<
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So
also the Pollen of lycopodium floats on alcohol and on water,
without either of them showing any action upon it - the crude
lycopodium is tasteless and inactive when it enters the human
stomach; but when changed in a similar manner through trituration
it is not only perfectly soluble in either fluid, but has
also developed such extraordinary medicinal powers, that great
care must be taken in its medicinal use.
Who
ever found marble or oyster-shells soluble in pure water or
in alcohol? But this mild lime becomes perfectly soluble in
either, by means of this mode of preparation; the same is
the case with baryta and magnesia and these substances then
exhibit astonishing medicinal powers.
Least
of all will anyone ascribe solubility in water and alcohol
to quartz, to rock-crystal (many crystals of which have contained
enclosed in them drops of water for thousands of years unchanged),
or to sand; nor would any one ascribe to them medicinal power,
and yet by the dynamization (potentizing)*
peculiar to Homoeopathy, by melting silica with an
alkaline salt, and then precipitating it from this glass,
it not only becomes soluble without any residuum in water
and in alcohol, but also then shows prodigious medicinal powers.
What
can I say of the pure metals and of their sulphurets, but
that all of them, without any exception become by this treatment
equally soluble in water and in alcohol, and every one of
them develops the medicinal virtue peculiar to it in the purest,
simplest manner and in an incredibly high degree?
But
the chemical medicinal substances thus prepared now also stand
above the chemical laws.
A
dose of phosphorus, potentized highly in a similar manner,
may lie in its paper envelope in the desk, and, nevertheless,
when taken after a whole year's interval, it will still show
its full medicinal power; not that of phosphoric acid, but
that of the unchanged, uncombined phosphorus itself. So that
no neutralization takes place in this its elevated, and as
it were, glorified state.
The
medicinal effects of natrum carbonicum, of ammonium carbonicum,
of baryta, of lime, and of magnesia, in this highly potentized
state, when a dose of one of them has been taken, is not neutralized
like basic substances taken in a crude form by a drop of vinegar
taken afterwards; their medicinal effect being neither changed
nor destroyed.
-----
(*
In its crude condition and without this preparation quartz
and pebbles do not seem to allow a development of their medicinal
powers by trituration and therefore it is that the triturating
of various medicine with the indifferent sugar of milk in
the porcelain triturating bowl seems to impart to them no
admixture of silicea as some anxious purists have vainly feared.)
-----<
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Nitric
acid when thus given in its highly potentized state in which
it is serviceable for homoeopathic medicinal use, is not changed
by a little crude lime or crude soda given after it, as to
its strong well defined medicinal action; therefore it is
not neutralized.
In
this preparation, peculiar to Homoeopathy, we take one grain
in powder of any of the substances treated of in the six volumes
of Materia Medica Pura,* and especially those of the antipsoric substances
following below, i.e., of silica, carbonate of baryta, carbonate
of lime, carbonate of soda and sal ammoniac, carbonate of
magnesia, vegetable charcoal, animal charcoal, graphites,
sulphur, crude antimony, metallic antimony, gold, platina,
iron, zinc, copper, silver, tin. The lumps of the metals which
have not yet been beaten out into foil, are rubbed off on
a fine, hard whetstone under water, some of them, as iron,
under alcohol; of mercury in the liquid form one grain is
taken, of petroleum one drop instead of a grain, etc. This
is first put on about one-third of 100 grains of pulverized
sugar of milk, and placed in an unglazed porcelain mortar,
or in one from which the glaze has been first rubbed off with
wet sand; the medicine and the sugar of milk are then mixed
for a moment with a porcelain spatula, and the mixture is
triturated with some force for six minutes, the triturated
substance is then for four minutes scraped from the mortar
and from the porcelain pestle,**
which is also unglazed, or has had its glazing rubbed off
with wet sand, so that the trituration may be homogeneously
mixed. After this has been thus scraped together, it is triturated
again without any addition for another six minutes with equal
force. After scraping together again from the bottom and the
sides for four minutes this triturate (for which the first
third of the 100 grains had been used), the second third of
the sugar of milk is now added, both are mixed together with
the spatula for a moment, triturated again with like force
for six minutes; then having again scraped the triturate for
four minutes, it is triturated a second time (without addition)
for six minutes more, and after scraping it together for another
four minutes it is mixed with the last third of the powdered
sugar of milk by stirring it around with the spatula, and
then the whole mixture is again triturated for six minutes,
scraped for four minutes, and a second and last time triturated
for six minutes; then it is all scraped together and the powder
is preserved in a well stoppered bottle with the name of the
substance and the signature 100 because it is potentized one
hundred fold.
-----
(*
Vegetable substances which can only be procured dry,
e.g., cinchona bark, ipecacuanha, etc., are prepared by the
same kind of trituration and will completely dissolve when
potentized a million fold, not less, with their peculiar powers,
in water and alcohol, and may then be preserved as medicines
far more easily than the easily spoiled alcoholic tinctures.
Of the juiceless vegetable substances, such as oleander, thuja,
the bark of mezereum, etc., we may, without making a mistake,
take of each about one and a half grains of the fresh leaves,
bark, root, etc., without any further preparation, and triturate
the same three times with 100 grains of sugar of milk to the
millionfold powder trituration. A grain of this dissolved
in alcohol and water may be developed in the diluting vials
with alcohol to the necessary degree of potency of their powers
by giving for each potency two succussive strokes. Also with
the freshly expressed juices of the herbs it is best to at
once put one drop of the same with as much sugar of milk as
is taken for the preparation of the other medicines, so as
to triturate it to the millionfold powder attenuation, and
then a grain of this attenuation is dissolved in equal parts
of water and alcohol, and must be potentized to a further
dynamization through the twenty-seven diluting vials by means
of two succussive strokes. The fresh juices thus seem to acquire
more of dynamization, as experience teaches me, than when
the juice without any preparation by triturating is merely
diluted in thirty vials of alcohol and potentized each time
with two succussive strokes.)
(Even
phosphorus which is so easily oxidized by exposure to the
air is potentized in a similar manner, and thus rendered soluble
in these two liquids, and is thus prepared as a homoeopathic
medicine; but in this case some precautions are used, which
will be found below.)
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(**
That after the completion of every three hours' trituration
of a medicinal substance, the mortar, pestle and spatula are
to be several times scalded with boiling water, being after
every scalding wiped quite dry and clean, I presuppose as
indispensable, so that no idea of spoiling any medicine that
may be triturated in it in feature may be entertained. If
the further precaution is used of exposure mortar, pestle
and spatula to a heat approaching red heat, this will dissipate
every thought that any least rest of the medicine last triturated
can cling to them and thus even the most scrupulous mind will
be satisfied.)
(Only
phosphorus needs some modification in the preparation (if
the first attenuation to the 100th degree. Here the hundred
grains of sugar of milk are at once put into the triturating
bowl and, with about twelve drops of water they are stirred
by means of the wet pestle into a thickish pap; one grain
of phosphorus is then cut into numerous pieces, say twelve,
and kneaded in with the moist pestle and rather stamped than
rubbed into it, while the mass which often clings to the pestle
is as often scraped into the mortar. Thus the little crumbs
of phosphorus are rubbed to little invisible dust particles
in the, thick pap of sugar of milk even in the first two periods
of six minutes each, without the appearance of the least spark.
During the third period of six minutes the stamping may pass
over into rubbing, because the mass is then approaching the
form of powder. During the succeeding three periods of six
minutes each trituration is carried on only with a moderate
force, and after every six minutes the powder is scraped from
the mortar and the pestle for several minutes, which is done
easily, as this powder does not adhere tenaciously. After
the sixth period of trituration the powder, when standing
exposed to the air in the dark, is only feebly luminous, and
has but a slight odor. It is put into a well-stoppered vial
and marked phosphorus 1/100, the other two triturations 1/10000,
and 1/mill. are prepared like those from other dry medicinal
substances.)
-----<
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To
potentize the substance to the ten thousandth attenuation,
one grain of the powder last mentioned as being the one hundredth
is taken with one-third of 100 grains of fresh sugar of milk,
stirred in the mortar with a spatula and treated as above,
so that every third is triturated twice for six minutes at
a time, and after every trituration is scraped together (for
about four minutes), before the second third of the sugar
of milk is added and after this has been similarly treated
the last third of sugar of milk is stirred into it and again
similarly triturated twice for six minutes at a time, when
it is scraped together, put in a stoppered vial with the signature
1/10000 as it contains the medicine potentized to the ten
thousandth attenuation.* The
same is done with one grain of this powder (marked 1/10000)
in order to bring it to I, and thus to attenuate it to the
millionfold potency.
In
order to produce a homogeneity in the preparation of the homoeopathic
and especially the antipsoric remedies, at least in the form
of powders, I advise the reducing of medicines only to this
millionth potency, no more and no less and to prepare from
this the solutions and the necessary potencies of these solutions;
this has been my own custom.
The
trituration should be done with force, yet only with so much
force that the sugar of milk may not be pressed too firmly
to the mortar, but may be scraped up in four minutes.
Now
in preparing the solutions from this, and in bringing the
medicines thus potentized one millionfold, into the fluid
form, (so that their dynamization may be still further continued),
we are aided by the property of all medicinal substances,
that, when brought to the potency I, they are soluble in water
and alcohol; this property is still unknown to chemistry.
-----
(*
Thus it will be seen that every attenuation (that to 1/100,
that to 1/10000, and also the third to 1/1000000 or I) is
prepared by six times triturating for six minutes and six
times scraping together for four minutes each time. Thus each
one requires one hour.)
(In
the beginning I used to give a small part of a grain of the
powders potentized to the 1/10000 or the I degree by trituration,
as a dose. But since it small part of a grain is too indefinite
a quantity, and since Homoeopathy must avoid all indefiniteness
and inexactness as much as possible, the discovery that all
medicines may be changed from potentized medicinal powders
into fluids with which a definite number of pellets may be
moistened for a dose, was of great value to me. From liquids
the higher potencies may also be easily prepared.)
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