Of Medicaments
In my work on the "Principles of Homoeopathy," I have already related in what manner Hahnemann, by his experiments with bark, succeeded in determining that diseases are to be cured only by the use of those medicines which excite phenomena similar to those of the disease themselves.
This law, expressed in the trite but expressive sentence, "Similia similibus curentur," is a fixed principle, - an immoveable basis of homoeopathic art.
Most of the uncertain problems of practice vanish in a moment before this law of nature; and, for all future time, the practice of medicine has burst through the mists of hypothesis, - through a blind routine, which continued to prevail until this fixed and absolute law had been discovered.
As soon as Hahnemann had got possession of this therapeutic law, in order to support and illustrate it by practice, he undertook to perform on himself, his family, and his most devoted pupils, a series of experiments, with a view to ascertain the real or pure properties of medicines. This new undertaking was incontestably one of the most laborious and difficult which was ever undertaken and accomplished.
The medicinal agents which, up to this time, have been tested by experiment, are more than two hundred in number; of which, upwards of one hundred and fifty have been very elaborately investigated. When these curatives are given to healthy subjects, they produce an immense series of greater or less phenomena. Reckoning all the effects produced in various constitutions, Aconite , for instance, produces upwards of 500 symptoms; Arnica , upwards of 600; Arsenic and Sulphur each upwards of 1,000; Pulsatilla , upwards of 1,100; Nux vomica , upwards of 1,300; and so on: and thus we see that the homoeopathic materia medica, composed of the aggregate of substances capable of producing symptomatic effects in a healthy man, is a vast arsenal wherein the physician, being directed in his choice by an unerring guide, is at liberty to select the weapons with which he intends to encounter disease.
The study of the pure materia medica is therefore of the highest importance; for it is quite as requisite to know the proper remedy as the disease; these two things are inseparable.
In homoeopathic practice, physicians do not make a hasty survey of an isolated symptom, and then apply at random the remedy it points out to the disease indicated by such symptom: they have to engage the aggregate of the symptoms of the complaint, by a similar aggregate of the medicinal symptoms; and these medicinal symptoms must be excited and increased under the influence of the same causes and circumstances which excite and increase the symptoms of the disease. In a word, it is necessary that the characteristic features of the disease should also form the characteristic features of the remedy.
How then, with two hundred medicines, with upwards of 100,000 symptoms, or circumstances tending to produce, to lessen, or increase them, - how, then, is it possible for us to direct our course? is there a memory strong enough to retain and class them all? And, if the memory is incapable of this, what is the method to be employed? By what thread shall we guide ourselves in this labyrinth? In fine, what method is there for studying the pure materia medica?
The medical man has no other course than to begin by studying thoroughly some few of the most important curatives, so as to know them fully. After that, by pursuing an attentive course of reading as regards the other remedies, and by drawing comparisons between them and those he has mastered, he will detect the differences and resemblances which are observed between them.
The homoeopathic practitioner ought never to let a single day pass without reading some portion of the materia medica. When he has read a moderate portion, he should again resume that task; and each successive reading will increase his knowledge, and make it more and more present to his mind. The cases of his patients will inevitably suggest themselves to serve as means of comparison. Thus he will be sure to acquire a considerable body of facts.
In this manner, the medical man will succeed, not merely in becoming acquainted with single and distinct symptoms in each article of the materia medica, but in grasping their sum total, the principal features they present, and the connection of the symptoms one with another, and consequently he will do, for the investigation of curatives, what I recommend for the study of diseases, when I said it was not enough to possess a knowledge of the symptoms in order to ascertain the complaint, but that it was also requisite to know which were the principal symptoms, and which the sympathetic.
Such is the basis of the study of our materia medica. But, notwithstanding this method, the physician must not be so presumptuous as to imagine that he ever can retain, in his memory, all the facts which constitute that branch of the art; and, if he cannot retain all, he must have recourse to the works of classification to assist him.
The disciples of Hahnemann in Germany soon became sensible of this necessity; and, by dint of patience and exertion, they have succeeded in forming most useful classifications for the search of the remedy. Doctors Weber, Ruckert, Boenninghausen, Jahr, have successively contributed to this very useful work, and have accomplished the object with a scrupulous exactness.
We shall stop only to make known two of these authors, Ruckert and Jahr; (Ruckert has not yet been translated from the German; Jahr has been translated into French.) for if these are known, a mere glance will suffice to give the reader an idea of the writings of the rest.
Ruckert has published the systematic arrangement of every curative of which the action has been ascertained; and has therein observed, in a great measure, the same order as has been observed in the materia medica of Hahnemann.
He begins by exposing the general symptoms presented in the head, and then in each organ connected with it, such as the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, &c. In a word, he devotes a distinct section to each organ in its turn. - After this, he exhibits the symptoms which affect the general economy; such as sleep, fear, the disturbance of the mental faculties, &c.
In this order, he has classed the different remedies which affect these organs, taking care to range them according to the analogy of action.
Nothing will give a better notion of his book, and the mode of using it, than an example of the author's manner. For instance, in that portion of the contents which regards the eye, he establishes three great divisions.
1st. The eyelids; 2d, the eyeball; 3d, the sight.
1st. In that which regards the eyelids, he lays down as many classes or divisions as there are symptoms recognized as pertaining to the organs; thus,
a. Heat and burning sensation in the eyelids.
b. Smarting in the eyelids
c. Pressure in the eyelids.
d. Shooting pains in the eyelids.
e. Dryness and sense of dryness in the eyelids
f. Swelling and sense of swelling in the eyelids.
It would be useless to give in detail every division; for foregoing is sufficient.
2ndly. For the eye itself, he proceeds in the same manner.
a. A sense of pressure in the eye.
b. Shooting pains in the eye.
c. Heat and burning in the eye.
d. Smarting in the eye.
e. Inflammation, redness, blood in the eyes.
f. Watery eyes. - And so on with the rest.
3dly. For the sight, he lays down the following divisions:
a. Dread of light - the eyes being painfully affected by light, dazzling of the eyes,
b. Weakness in the eyes, gradual diminution of the sight,
c. Darkness, mist in the eyes, the loss of sight and so forth
He has extended this method to every organ, giving as many subdivisions as there are symptoms; and, throughout, he adheres to the treble division of the symptoms, into symptoms of sensation, symptoms of perceptible change, and symptoms which belong to the function itself. All these divisions being once well determined, Ruckert has, in the body of his work, introduced into these divisions al the curatives which, by their symptoms, have reference to them. Thus, in the article eyelids, we have seen:
a. Heat and burning sensation.
Phosphoric acid - produces burning sensation in the eyelids during the day, and burning with itching in the internal angle; burning in the internal angle, generally after noon, as if too much air and light penetrated to the part; by pressing the eye, some relief is obtained.
Agaricus : the internal angles are burning hot, and feel as if they were about to be inflamed; when touched, they smart still more; when the eyelids are contracted, the internal angles have a sensation of burning.
Ambra : burning in the eyelid.
The author goes on to enumerate every curative which can produce burning pains in the eyelids; and he does the same with every other sensation relating to them. Thence he proceeds, both in the Contents and in the Body of the work, to the article "Eyeball," and repeats the same process. That is again entirely repeated in the article "Sight." - Every organ is treated in the same searching manner, and every symptom of which each is susceptible.
It follows, that in order to profit by this repertory, the physician, above and before all things, must be perfectly master of the order and distribution of the book. It will then become a comparatively easy task to derive from it the great advantage which if affords.
Let us suppose that a practitioner has to prescribe for a patient who, among other symptoms, is affected with tender eyes, unable to bear the influence of day or candle light.
In order to discover directly what is the fittest remedy, he at once consults the article "Eye," and looks in the table of contents for the subdivision, "dread of light;" and in the chapter allotted to this division, he will learn that about forty curatives have the property of developing this symptom. Nothing will then remain to be done, but to compare these forty curatives one with another, and to select the right one.
The same process must be renewed, for the other symptoms; and it will constantly be seen that the curatives are disposed according to the resemblance of the symptoms which they produce in the various divisions and subdivisions of the different organs.
By means, therefore, of Ruckert's Repertory, the great obstacle, the materia medica, is surmounted; as, for the most part, it enables us to discover very readily the symptoms required. When, however, the physician has to treat a rather complicated disease, the same intimate enquiry must be instituted for every symptom, as that pointed out for sensibility under the impression of light.
But, as the comparing of so many symptoms one with another is both long and troublesome, Boenninghausen, and subsequently Jahr, in order to simplify and curtail this task, have composed another kind of repertory. In this, they have been very successful, as their works lead us much more speedily to the proper remedy. I shall here examine only the repertory of Jahr; for after having understood it, a glance will suffice to explain that of Boenninghausen.
This physician adopts the divisions as they stand in the materia medica of Hahnemann, or in Ruckert's Repertory; the only difference being in the order of the chapters.
He begins by exposing:
1st. The general and predominant symptoms.
2d. The cutaneous symptoms.
3d. Sleep and dreams.
4th. The febrile or feverish state.
5th. Affections of the mind.
6th. The head - giddiness.
7th. Internal symptoms of the head.
8th. External symptoms of the head.
9th. The eyes, and sight.
10th. The ears, and hearing.
In short, every organ is examined in rotation, terminating with the lower limbs, which form the 33d and final section.
Every one of these classes contains, in alphabetical order, all the different symptoms which refer to the organ under examination; and annexed to each symptom, are stated the medicines which produce them. Thus the eye can review at once and observe the whole collection of medicines which in operation bear any resemblance to one another.
This work does not present, as in Ruckert, the text of the materia medica of Hahnemann, for, in that case, the two works would have been nearly the same. When one medicine, however, is distinguished from another by some striking peculiarity, the subdivisions make them distinct.
In quoting a passage from the author, in order to give a better notion of his book, I shall once more select the Eye for an example; and, by this means, the practitioner will perceive, at the same time, the coincidence in Ruckert and the author I am speaking of; and the benefit conferred by both writers will appear.
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