Upon this principle the homœopathist condemns all combinations of medicines as likely to neutralize each other’s properties by their various affinities; therefore generally speaking, no fresh medicine should be given until the effects of the former have subsided; and to guide this practice, while they endeavoured to ascertain the symptoms produced by medicines, they also sought to ascribe certain limits to the duration of their action: thus, the influence of aconite lasts forty-eight hours, and that of crude antimony fifteen days.
Dreading all substances that could tend to weaken or neutralize the effect of medicine, the homœopathists made it their particular study to discover the peculiar action of all alimentary substances on the organism, and characterized as antidotes all such articles of food as they considered opposed to this supposed action: thus, wine and vegetable acids were deemed antidotes to aconite; coffee, to Angustura bark; vinegar, to asarum, &c.
I have already stated that the homœopathists conceive that the infinite dilution of their atoms of medicinal substances increase their energy; and this fact they so strenuously maintain, that they assert that accidents of a serious nature may arise when this division is carried too far; and these accidents are then to be met with the medicinal antidotes they pretend to have discovered: thus, camphor is an antidote to cocculus; opium, to the crocus sativus; camomile and camphor, to ignatia amara; and so on.
The minuteness with which the specific actions of various medicinal substances on certain organs is detailed is scarcely credible; and the following extract from the homœopathic materia medica will give a slight idea of their industrious labours. Taking as an example phosphorus, which they affirm produces—
Vertigo, determination of blood to the head, headache in the morning, fall of the hair, difficulty in opening the eyelids, burning sensation and ulceration of the internal canthus of the eye, when exposed to the open air, lachrymation and adhesion of the palpebræ; inflammation of the eyes, with the sensation of particles of sand having been introduced; sparks and spangles floating before the eyes, a dark tinge in objects that are looked on, diurnal cecity, the appearance of a gray veil drawn before the eyes, pulsation in the ears, epistaxis, mucous discharge from the nostrils, foulness of breath, tumefaction of the throat, whiteness of the tongue, ulceration of the mouth, expectoration of glairy mucus, dryness of the mouth by night and by day, spasmodic eructation, nausea, sense of hunger after eating, anxiety after meals; in short, twenty-four octavo pages are devoted to the innumerable effects of this substance on the organism.
Of magnesia artificialis three hundred and twelve symptoms are noted; six hundred and fifty of the rhus radicans; nine hundred and forty of pulsatilla; five hundred of ignatia amara; four hundred and sixty of arsenic: in short, volumes upon volumes are crowded with these observations, not only recording physical effects, but singular results on our moral faculties; such as serenity or moroseness, gaiety or sadness, a disposition to commit suicide or a fond partiality to life, courage or cowardice, a weak intellect or a vigorous conception. For instance,—common sea-salt occasions irascibility, lowness of spirits, taciturnity, melancholy, palpitation of heart, disposition to shed tears, pusillanimity, and despair; while potash gives rise to ill-temper without apparent cause at noon and in the evening, with violent paroxysms of rage in the morning, impetuous desires, furious passion, with gnashing of teeth, if all around does not yield to the patient’s desires; while the vision of a bird hovering about the window produces loud shrieks of alarm, exaltation of the intellects, and a horror of the future. So innumerable, indeed, are all these singular effects attributed to various medicines thus experimented, that no memory, however retentive, could possibly bear them in recollection. The following are the directions laid down for conducting this curious inquiry:
The person upon whom medicines are tried must be free from disease; but weak substances should be given to subjects of a delicate and sensitive constitution. The medicine is to be tried in its most pure and simple state, possessing all its energies, taking special care that it is not combined with any heterogeneous substances during the day it is exhibited, and the time while its action is supposed to last. The diet must be moderate; all spices and high-seasoned food to be avoided, as well as green vegetables, roots, salads, &c. which are known to possess medicinal properties. The dose of the medicine to be similar to that which is usually prescribed by practitioners. If, at the expiration of about two hours, no effect is observed, a stronger dose is to be given. Should the first dose operate powerfully at the commencement, but gradually lose its influence, the second will be given the following morning; and a still stronger one, four times the strength of the first, be administered on the third day.
The result of these experiments being recorded, homœopathic agents are selected to oppose morbid symptoms; and when the choice of remedies has been appropriate, an aggravation of the symptoms is observed. This aggravation is usually considered as an increase of the disorder, whereas it is solely the effect of the homœopathic remedy. “For these phenomena,” say the homœopathists, “were frequently observed by physicians, who little thought at the time, that they were the result of the medicines they had given.” Thus, when the pustules of itch became more rife after the exhibition of sulphur, it was thought that the increase of the eruption was merely the affection coming out more freely; whereas, the aggravation was occasioned by sulphur. Leroy informs us that the heart’s-ease, viola tricolor, increased an eruption in the face. Lyrons says that elm-bark aggravated cutaneous affections, which were cured by this remedy; but neither of them were aware of the nature of this homœopathic development. For further information on this head, the Organon of Hahnemann must be consulted.
Such were his doctrines for a period of about twenty years,—doctrines which he emphatically pronounced infallible, and founded on the immutable laws of homœopathy. In 1828, however, convinced by numerous failures in the treatment of chronic diseases, that other causes than those which he acknowledged,—such as the improper preparation of the medicine, or dietetic neglect on the part of the patient,—contributed to these disappointments, he announced that he had discovered the hidden source of the obstacles he encountered; and that, after many years of experiments and meditation, he had come to the conclusion that almost all chronic diseases originated from constitutional miasmatic affections or predispositions, which he divided into sycosis, syphilis, and psora, or, in plain English, the itch. To this latter affection he attributes innumerable disorders. In diseases of a syphilitic character, he had found his mode of treatment infallible; and he therefore concluded that all obstinate and rebellious affections were the result of some other constitutional predisposing circumstances. He tells us that he laboured in profound secrecy to discover this great, this sublime desideratum: his very pupils knew it not; the world was to remain in ignorance of his pursuits until he could proclaim the most inestimable gift that Divinity bestowed upon mankind. This immortal discovery was neither more nor less than the itch; to which malady, according to his views, since the days of Moses, seven-eighths of the physical and moral miseries to which flesh is heir, were to be referred. Whether rendered evident by eruptions, or latent from our cradle, it was a curse transmitted to us, by the modification and degeneration of leprosy, through myriads of constitutions, and which only disappears from the surface to fester in malignity until it bursts forth again in the multifarious forms of innumerable diseases, amongst which we find scrofula, rachitis, phthisis, hysteria, hypochondriasis, dropsy, hydrocephalus, hæmorrhage, fistula, diseases of the head and liver, ruptures, cataracts, tic-douloureux, deafness, erysipelas, cancers, aneurisms, rheumatism, gout, apoplexy, epilepsy, palsy, convulsions, stone, St. Vitus’s dance, nervous affections of every description, loss of sight, of smell, of taste, stupidity and imbecility.[36] In support of this doctrine, Hahnemann adduces ninety-five cases recorded by medical writers, in which the disappearance of the itch was followed by various acute and chronic maladies.
The next miasmatic generator is sycosis, or the disposition to warty excrescences; but this source of disease Hahnemann does not consider so prolific as syphilis, or his favourite psora.