The Genius of the Homoeopathic Healing Art-Samuel Hahnemann
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Translated by Dr. A D Lippe Part III
All experience proves unmistakably that human
organism is much more predisposed and susceptible to medicinal
forces than to diseased noxiousnesses and infectious miasms; or, to
express it differently, that the medicinal forces possess an absolute,
but the diseased affections a merely limited, power
to change the conditions of the human organism.
This makes it already obvious that a
possibility exists of curing disease by medicines (that is to say,
that the diseased condition of the sickened organism can be
obliterated by means of the most suitable alterations through
medicines). But it becomes necessary also to comply with a second
natural law, if the cure is to be made a reality; that is, a
stronger dynamic affection overcomes the weaker one in the living
organism permanently, if the first is similar in kind to the latter;
because the dynamic change of the condition to be expected
from the medicine must not, as I believe I have proved, be either
differentially deviating from or allopathic to the diseased
condition; otherwise a much greater disturbance would follow, as is
the case under the common practice; neither must be opposite,
so that only a palliative, fallacious improvement, which is
invariably followed by an aggravation of the original disease, may
be produced. But the medicine must possess the tendency to cause a
condition similar to the disease (to cause similar symptoms
on the healthy person), and observations much have shown this
tendency, and then only can it become a permanently curative
medicine.
Whereas the dynamic affections of the organism
(either by medicines or disease) can be discerned only by means of
expressions of changed sensations and changed functions; and
whereas, also, the similarity of their dynamic affections
reciprocally can be ascertained only through a similarity of
symptoms; and as the organism (much more easily affected by
medicines than by diseases) is more submissive to drug-action; that
is to say, is more easily affected and changed by it, than from a
similar affection of diseases; it follows that, without a
possibility of contradiction, the organism must necessarily be
relieved from the diseased affections if a medicine is applied
which, also entirely different in its nature from the disease
(Foot-note-13), approaches it as near as possible in its similarity
of symptoms, that is, is homoeopathic to it; because the organism,
as a complete living unit, is not capable of absorbing two similar
dynamic affections at the same time without compelling the weaker to
succumb to the stronger one; and as the organism is more apt to be
affected by the stronger force (medicinal affection), then there
will be a necessity created to part with the weaker one (diseased
affection), and by that process the organism is healed of it.
It is illusive for any one to think that the
living organism under the administration of a dose of homoeopathic
medicine, for the cure of its disease, thereby becomes burdened with
an addition to its ills; just as if a plate of lead already pressed
by an iron weight were the stronger pressed by the adding of a stone
to it; or a piece of copper heated by friction, by pouring hot water
on it, must become still more heated! Nothing of the kind, not
passive, not according to physical laws of inorganic nature is our
living organism governed. It reacts with its life-antagonism, so
that it, as a unit, as a living whole, submissively permits the
diseased condition to be extinguished, if a similarly strong force
pervades the organism by means of a homoeopathic remedy.
Our living human organism is spiritually
reacting. It excludes by a spontaneous force a less powerful
affection, as soon as the stronger force of a homoeopathic remedy
produces a different but very similar affection. In other words, on
account of the oneness of its life it cannot suffer, at the same
time, from two similar general disturbances, but is compelled to
part with the previous dynamic affection (disease) as soon as it is
acted upon by a second dynamic force (medicine), which is more apt
to affect it; provided that medicine possesses the capability of
affecting the organism (symptoms) in a very similar manner to the
first affection. Something similar occurs in the human mind
(Foot-note-14).
In proportion as the human organism is more
easily affected by medicines when in a state of health than by
disease, as I have demonstrated above, so is that organism when
diseased, without comparison, much more easily affected by
homoeopathic medicines than by any other (for instance, allopathic
or enantiopathic) – and it is acted upon easily and in a very
high degree, as it is already inclined to certain symptoms by
the disease, hence it becomes more susceptible to similar symptoms
by the homoeopathic medicine – just as our own similar mental
suffering causes the mind to become much more sensitive to similar
stories of woe. Therefore, it becomes obvious that only the smallest
doses become useful and necessary for a cure; that is to say, for
the changing of the sickened organism into a similar medicinal
disease; and for that reason is it unnecessary to give it in a
larger dose, because in this case the object is obtained not through
the quantity but through potentiality and quality (dynamic
conformity, homoeopathy). There is no utility in a larger dose, but
there is harm done; the larger dose on the one side does not cause
the dynamic change of the diseased affection with more certainty
than the most suitable smallest dose; but it causes and supplants,
on the other side, a multiplied medicinal disease, which is always
an evil, although it passes by after a certain lapse of time.
The organism becomes strongly affected, and
becomes pervaded by the force of a medicinal substance which is
capacitated to obliterate and extinguish the totality of the
symptoms of the disease, through its endeavours to create similar
symptoms. The organism becomes, as we have said, liberated from the
diseased condition at the very time that it is affected by the
medicinal power, by which it is decidedly more apt to be impressed.
The medicinal forces, as such, even in larger
doses, hold the organism only for a few days under their influence;
and, therefore, it becomes apparent that a small dose, and in acute
diseases a very small dose of that medicine (such as it has been
proven constitutes the dose for a homoeopathic cure) can affect the
organism for a short time only (and in acute diseases the smallest
dose is capable of affecting the organism for only a few hours), and
that the medicinal affection which now occupies the place of the
disease very soon and imperceptibly passes into pure health.
It appears that the nature of the human
organism is governed solely by the laws we have here presented if
disease is to be permanently cured by medicines; and really we may
say that this action is a mathematical certainty. There exists no
case of a dynamic disease in this world (with the exception of
the death-agony, and, we may so class it here, advanced age and the
destruction of indispensable viscera or limbs) which cannot be cured
quickly and permanently by a medicine which has been found to
cause in its positive effects symptoms in great similarity to it.
The sick person can by no other possible means
of cure (Foot-note-15) be more easily, more quickly, more certainly,
in a more reliable and permanent manner, liberated from disease,
than through homoeopathic medicines in small doses.
Foot-note-13: Without this natural difference
between diseased affections and the medicinal affections, no cure
could be effected. If both were not only similar, but also of the
same nature, therefore identical, there would be no effect produced
(probably only an aggravation of the evil). In the same manner, it
would be vain to expect to cure a chancre by moistening it with the
poison of another chancre.Back
to (Foot-note-13)
Foot-note-14: For instance, a grieved girl,
lamenting the death of a playmate, becomes solaced through the
strong effect of being introduced to a family where she finds
half-naked children who have just lost their father, their only
support. She becomes more reconciled to her comparatively smaller
loss; she is cured of her grief for her playmate, because the
oneness of the mind can at the same time be affected only by a
single similar emotion, and that emotion must be subdued if another
similar emotion take possession of her mind which affects her
stronger, and in that manner becomes a homoeopathic remedy,
extinguishing the former. The girl would not have been relieved of
the grief she felt for the loss of her playmate, if, for instance,
the mother had scolded her (a heterogene allopathic force). On the
contrary, she would have been much sicker in mind by the addition of
a different mortification, and again would be grieved girl, had she
been seemingly cheered for a few hours palliatively by a jocund
festivity (because the emotion in this case was an opposite,
enanthiopathic), have fallen afterwards into deeper sadness when she
was left to her solitude, and then would have cried more bitterly
than before. What we here see in the psychological condition, we
find also in the organic life. The oneness of our life does not
allow itself to be occupied and possessed of ttwo general similar
dynamic affections at the same time; because, if the second
affection prove itself to be the stronger one, the first will become
obliterated, just as soon as the organism becomes affected by the
second.
Foot-note-15: Even in the common practice, and in rare
cases, the strikingly effective cures are the results of a
homoeopathically suitable and homoeopathically acting medicine
(accidentally prescribed). It was impossible for the physician to
choose a homoeopathic remedy for the cure of diseases, as the
positive (the positive effects observed on healthy persons) effects
of medicines were never thought of, and therefore they remained
ignorant of them; and even those medicines, with such as were made
known by my writings, were not considered useful for curative
purposes. Furthermore, they remained ignorant of the necessary
conditions for a permanent cure, and of the effects of medicines on
those symptoms of disease which were similar to them (the
homoeopathic law of cure).12 3