The chronic diseases

Contents

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE v

ANNOTATOR'S PREFACE vii

EDITOR'S PREFACE xii

Prefatory Note To Materia Medica Section

I have been desired, by the publishers of this new translation of Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases, to exercise a certain editorial superintendence over what may be called the Materia Medica section of the work. I shall do this mainly by notes appended to each pathogenesis; but in the present place I desire to state what is known in a general way about the symptom-lists in question,-'^ and what I propose to do for them as they severall}^ appear in the following pages.

I. In 1 82 1 Hahnemann had been compelled to leave Leipsic, and. in difficulty where to find a place in which he could practice in freedom, had been offered an asylum in the little country town of Coethen. Thither he repaired, and there he remained till his removal

* The information we have on this subject is fully given at page 31 of the later editions of my Pharmacodynamics. My present statement is based upon what is written there.

VIU PREFATORY NOTE.

to Paris in 1835. He now ceased to attend acute disease, save in the family of his patron, the reigning Duke. But his fame brought him for consultation chronic sufferers from all parts; and the varied, shifting, and obstinate morbid states under which so many men and women labour were pressed closely upon his attention. The result was the theory of chronic disease which (in its latest shape) will be found in these pages, and which traces so many of its forms to a "psoric" origin. To meet the manifold disorders thus induced it seemed to him that a new set of remedies were required. Accordingly, of the three volumes of the first edition of the present work published in 1828, the two latter contained what seem to be pathogeneses of fifteen medicines hitherto strange to his Materia Medica Pura, and in some cases to any Materia Medica whatever. These medicines were

Ammonium carbonicum, Magnesia muriatica.

Baryta carbonica, Natrum carbonicum,

Calcarea carbonica, Nitri acidum,

Graphites, Petroleum,

lodiumx, Phosphorus,

Lycopodium, Sepia,

Magnesia carbonica, Silicea,

Zincum.

The pathogeneses of the foregoing (I assume them to be such from the analogy of the corresponding symptom-lists of the Materia Medica Pura; but they are not avowedly so) appear without a word of explanation as to how the symptoms were obtained, and without acknowledgment (as in the previous work) of fellow- observers. The absence of anj^ co-operation on the part of others is further to be inferred from what we are told of the first announcement of the work. After six years of solitude at Coethen, Hahnemann *' summoned thither his two oldest and most esteemed disciples, Drs. Stapf and Gross, and communicated to them his theory of the origin of chronic diseases, and his discovery of a completely new series of medicaments for their cure.'' So wTites Dr. Dudgeon.* This was in 1827. That he should now first reveal these new remedies, and in the following year should publish copious lists of their pathogenetic effects, confirms the inference to be drawn from his position and from his silence as to fellow-observers. He was himself between seventy and eighty years old, and it is hardly likely that he did anything at this time in the way of proving on his own person. We are compelled to the conclusion that he drew these symptoms mainly — if not entirely —

* Lectures on Homoeopathy^ p. xxx.

PREFATORY NOTE. IX

from the sufferers from chronic disease who flocked to his retreat to avail themselves of his treatment.

The prefatory notices to the several medicines still further substantiate this view, and throw^ some light on the doses with which the symptoms were obtained. He recommends all the medicines to be given in the dilutions from the i8th to the 30th (save Magnesia muriatica and Natrum carbonicum, of which he advises the 6th and 12th respectively); and repeatedly makes some such remark as this: " For a long time past I have given the 6th, 9th and T2th potencies, but found their effects too violent." Occasionally, too, he must have used the second and third triturations; as he speaks of having begun by giving a "small portion of a grain " of these, but, as this was an indefinite quantity, having subsequentl}' dissolved and attenuated them. He mentions cases, moreover, in which he treated itch wdth Carbo vegetabilis and Sepia of the latter strength.

We may conclude, therefore, that it is these " violent effects " of the attenuations from the 2d to the 12th, experienced by the sufferers from chronic disease who took them, which make up the bulk — if not the whole — of the symptoms of the first issue of the Chronic Diseases.

In 1830 there appeared a third volume (making the fourth of the first edition) of symptom-lists, appended to two more new medicines — Kali carbonicum and Natrum muriaticum, and to five others — Carbo animalis and vegetabilis, Causticum, Conium and Sulphur — which had already found place in the Materia Medica Piira. Of the new^ ones we are told that two persons co-operated in obtaining the pathogenesis of Kali carbonicum and three in that of Natrum muriaticum — in the case of the latter the symptoms being obtained from health}- persons taking globules saturated with the 30th dilution.^ Fresh associates are also acknowledged with regard to Conium. A new^ character is thus imprinted on the symptoms standing under the names of the several medicines, and it continues wath respect to those contained in the second edition of the Chro7iic Diseases, published 1835-9, which is that here translated. Besides the twenty-two medicines of the first edition it contains twenty-five others, of which thirteen are new, and twelve had already appeared in the Materia Medica Piira. The new ones are:

Agaricus, Clematis,

Alumina, Cuprum,

Ammonium muriaticum, Euphorbium.

Anacardium, Mezereum,

* A specimen of these proviugs may be seen in the ^fo>^fhly Hoin. Rtviciv for 1889, p. 517.

X PREFATORY NOTE.

Antimonium crudum. Nitrum,

Borax, Platina,

Sulphuris acidum.

The old ones are:

Arsenicum, Hepar sulphuris,

Aurum . Manganum ,

Colocynth, Muriatis acidum,

Digitalis, Phosphori acidum,

Dulcamara, Sarsaparilla.

Guaiacum, Stannum.

Those pathogeneses which had already seen the light have (generally ) large additions; for all Hahnemann acknowledges contributions from fellow-observers, and for many cites symptoms from the extant literature of his day. The total number of these last is 1742.

There are, it is evident, fresh features in the pathogeneses of this second edition; and there are more than appear on the surface. Hahnemann's own additions, indeed, must be of the same character as his contributions to the first; i. e., they must be collateral effects of the drugs observed on the patients to whom he gave them. They must all, moreover, be supposed to have resulted from the 30th dilution; for since 1829 he had urged the administration of all medicines at this potency-. The same thing must be said of the contributions from Hahnemann's friends to this edition. They may fairl}' be conceived to have been provings on themselves or other healthy persons, save where, as in Wahle's symptoms of Mezereum and Hering's of Arsenic, the internal evidence is strong in the contrar}' direction. But they must in all cases have been evoked from the 30th dilution; for in the edition of the Organon published in 1833 Hahnemann recommends all provings to be made therewith, as yielding the best results. We have seen that the symptoms of Xatrum muriaticum contributed by others to the fourth volume of the first edition were so obtained; and we may fairly extend the inference to all provings subsequently made. It is otherwise, however, with the provings first published in the Materia Medica Pura, in the present edition so largeh' incorporated with those of later origin. These seem, from the scant}' information we have, to have been made with mother tinctures and first triturations — repeated small doses being taken until some effect was produced. Hahnemann was further able, at this time, to draw upon independent sources of drug-pathogenesy. Hartlaub and Trinks had published a Materia Medica of their own. Stapf had begun to issue his journal known as the Archiv, and many provings adorned its pages. Lasth", outside the Homoeopathic school. Professor Joerg,

PREFATORY NOTK. XI

of I^eipsic, was following in Hahnemann's track and proving medicines on himself and his students. Of all these materials Hahnemann availed himself in the present work, which thus presents a complex whole, made up of ver}^ heterogeneous elements, and needing analysis that it maj^ be appraised and used aright.

II. It is the giving such analysis that will constitute my editorial task. It will fall into the following categories:

1 . In the preface to each medicine Hahnemann gives a list of names of " fellow-observers." To this I shall append a note, stating whether these were provers of the later or earlier times, in which case the manner of their experimentation is to be learned from what I have written above; or whether their observations already existed in print, and what information we have respecting them.

2. In the pathogeneses themselves, the first time an author is cited I shall state the nature of his contribution to the subject (supposing his work to have been accessible to me). Then — having examined his symptoms in situ — I shall append to each one that requires it such explanation or correction as may be necessary to set it forth in its full meaning and value.

3. The foregoing information, and any other I may be able to supply as to individual symptoms,* will be found in notes at the bottom of the page, designated by the small figures 1,2, etc., and divided by a line from Hahnemann's own annotations, which have the usual *, f, etc. But while I have left untouched in the text the pathogenetic phenomena themselves, I have used greater freedom with the references to medical literature. These sometimes require correction, more frequently explanation — especiall}^ when transferred from the Materia Medica Pura or from Hartlaub and Trinks' work, in which case Hahnemann has practised omission to a very large extent, leaving those curious in the matter to refer to the previous publications. I have thought that the present volume would be more complete in itself, and more worthy of its author, were the references fully as well as rightly given; and have supplied them accordingly.

RICHARD HUGHES, M. D.

Brighton, England.

*See, for instance, notes to S. 114 of Colocynth and to S. 82 and 85 of Lycopodinm.

Xll EDITORS S PREFACE.

EDITOR'S PREFACE-

Whatever estimate Science may finally place upon the discoveries and doctrines of Hahnemann, and whatever measure of confidence in his therapeutic belief Posterit}^ may accord or withhold, his personality and work have achieved a position which must render them perpetuall)^ historic. His teachings have been so interwoven with the entire fabric of medical progress during the last hundred years» and are so interlaced with the formative development of the incoming century, that neither the wear and tear of time nor the dissections of criticism will ever be able to dissociate them. They are destined, inevitably, to run through the texture of every page in the future annals of medicine.

In the development of therapeutic art Hahnemann's position is more than niereh^ transitional. He proclaims both an epoch and an era; he represents both discovery and progress. To-day, as a hundred 3^ears ago, he holds in one hand the past, in the other the future of medical achievement. The future historian, crossing the chasm between the medicine of speculative hypothesis and that based on, observation of clinical and pharmaco-d3mamic phenomena, will unfailingl}' recognize Hahnemann's agency in bringing about that remarkable transformation in medical thought and practice. And no exposition of Hahnemann's tenets, no rendition of his literary works, which fails to note and consider their historical relations and the historic individuality of their author, can be either adequate or just.

In the task of setting forth in the English tongue the works of Hahnemann, it thus becomes necessar}^ not merel}' to note carefully the doctrines promulgated and the facts presented, but to exhibit also, so far as his recorded words express, and the resources of our own language enable us, the depth of the impression which his obser\-ations and discoveries must have produced upon his own mind, as well as the intensity of conviction, the earnestness of feeling, and the energj' of demonstration, which characterize all his controversial writings. Long after his lineaments shall have faded from the canvas, his intellectual personality will survive in his literar}^ creations and constitute an important feature of the medical chronicles of his time. To modify or disguise his modes of thought and expression, or to suppress the peculiarities of his literary style, would be an unpardonable distortion of the most pre-eminent figure in all medical history.

EDITOR S PREFACE. Xlll

111 that portion of this work in which Hahnemann considers the Nature and the Treatment of Chronic Diseases in general, and of Psora in particular, the reader will discover several peculiarities of style, some of which are not at all common to our English polemical literature. Among these we may mention: (i,) his long, and often involved, sentences; (2,) his exceedingly frequent employment of parenthetical clauses and sentences, and his not infrequent use of the parenthesis within a parenthesis; (3, ) his multiplicit}^ of iterations and reiterations — occurring twice or thrice in a single paragraph; sometimes twice in the same sentence — ; (4,) his frequent interjection of \vords and phrases expressing anew some minor feature of the subject under discussion, but forming no part of the discussion itself; (5,) his introduction of qualifying words and phrases in certain peculiar and unusual connections, likely to escape the notice of the casual or careless reader, but evidently intended by the author to be taken at their full significance and importance and to constitute an essential element of the discussion. It may be said, in passing, that the failure to note this last-mentioned characteristic of Hahnemann's method has occasioned much misunderstanding of his doctrines.

No attempt has been made to render this work, or any portion of it, a model of concise perspicuity. On the contrary, the aim has been to retain, rather than to eliminate, the characteristic style of the original text, in order that every point in the discussion, and every shade of meaning should, if possible, be rendered exactly as the author has expressed it. The careful student, certainly the intelligent admirer, of Hahnemann could not be content with a mere transcription of his views and observations, but must insist on the opportunit}^ to become familiar with his intellectual personality as he looks out upon the present-day world through the medium of his literary productions.

PKMBERTON DUDLEY, M. D.

PhiIvAdelphia, 1896.

Author's Preface

TO THE FIRST EDITION— 1828.

If I did not know for what purpose I was put here on earth — to become better myself as far as possible and to make better everything around me, that is within my power to improve — I should have to consider myself as lacking ver}^ much in worldly prudence to make known for the common good, even before my death, an art which I alone possess, and which it is within my power to make as profitable as possible by simply keeping it secret.

But in communicating to the world this great discovery, I am sorry that I must doubt whether my contemporaries will comprehend the logical sequence of these teachings of mine, and will follow them carefully and gain thereby the infinite benefits for suffering humanity which must inevitably spring from a faithful and accurate observance of the same; or whether, frightened away by the unheard of nature of many of these disclosures, they will not rather leave them untried and uninitiated and, therefore useless.

At least I cannot hope that these important communications will fare any better than the general Homoeopath}^ which I have published hitherto. From unbelief in the efficacy of the small and attenuated doses of medicine which I made known to the medical world after a thousand warning trials, as being the most efficient, (distrusting my faithful asseverations and reasons), men prefer to endanger their patients for years longer with large and larger doses. Owing to this, they generallj' do not live to see the curative effects, even as was the case with myself before I attained this diminution of dose. The cause of this was, that it was overlooked that these doses by their attenuation were all the more suitable for their Homoeopathic use, owing to the development of their d3mamic power of operation.

What would men have risked if they had at once followed m>- directions in the beginning, and had made use of just these small

XVI PREFACE TO FOURTH VOLUME.

doses from the first ? Could anything worse have happened than that these doses might have proved inefficient ? They surely could do no harm! But in their injudicious, self-willed application of large doses for homoeopathic use they onh^, in fact 07ily once again, went over that roundabout road so dangerous to their patients, in order to reach the truth which I myself had already successfully passed over, and indeed with trembling, so as to save them this trouble; and if thej^ reall}^ desired to heal, they were nevertheless at last compelled to arrive at the only true goal, after having inflicted manj^ an injury and wasted a good part of their fair life. All this I had already laid before them faithfully and frankly, and had long before given them the reasons.

Ma}^ the}^ do better wdth the great discovery herewith presented to them ! And if the}^ should not treat this discovery any better — well, then a more conscientious and intelligent posterity will alone have the advantage to be obtained by a faithful, punctual observance of the teachings here laid down, of being able to deliver mankind from the numberless torments which have rested upon the poor sick, owing to the numberless, tedious diseases, even as far back as history extends. This great boon had not been put within their reach by what Homoeopathy had taught hitherto.

Preface To The Fourth Volume.*

INQUIRY INTO THE PROCESS OF HOMGEOPATHIC HEALING.

We have no means of reaching with our senses or of gaining essential knowledge, as to the process of life in the interior of man, and it is only at times granted us to draw speculative conclusions from what is happening, as to the manner in which it may have occurred or taken place ; but we are unable to furnish conclusive proofs of our explanations, from the changes which are observed in the inorganic kingdom; for the changes in living organic subjects have

* The work on the " Chronic Diseases " was originally published in five parts and every part, except the second, had its own preface, discussing some questions of general interest to Homoeopathj'. — Transl.

nothing in common with those taking place in what is inorganic, since they take place by processes entirely different.

It is, therefore, quite natural, that in presesenting the Homoeopathic Therapeutics I did not venture to explain how the cure of diseases is effected by operating on the patient with substances possessing the power to excite very similar morbid symptoms in healthy persons. I furnished, indeed, a conjecture about it, but I did not desire to call it an explanation, i. <?., a definite explanation of the modus operandi. Nor was this at all necessary, for it is only incumbent upon us to cure similar symptoms correctly and successfully, according to a law of nature which is being constantly confirmed; but not to boast with abstract explanations, while we leave the patients uncured; for that is all which so-called physicians have hitherto accomplished.

These physicians have made many objections to the explanation I have given, and they would have preferred to reject the whole homoeopathic method of curing (the only one possible), merely because they were not satisfied with my efforts at explaining the mode of procedure which takes place in the interiors of man during a homoeopathic cure.

I write the present lines, not in order to satisfy those critics, but in order that I may present to myself and to my successors, the genuine practical Homoeopaths, another and more probable attempt of this kind toward an explanation. This I present, because the human mind feels within it the irresistible, harmless and praiseworthy impulse, to give some account to itself as to the mode in which man accomplishes good by his actions.

As I have elsewhere shown, it is undeniable, that our vital force, without the assistance of active remedies of human art, cannot overcome even the slight acute diseases (if it does not succumb to them) and restore some sort of health, without sacrificing a part (often a large part) of the fluid and the solid parts of the organism through a so-called crisis. How our vital force effects this, will ever remain unknown to us; but so much is sure, that this force cannot overcome even these diseases in a direct manner, nor without such sacrifices. The Chronic Diseases, which spring from miasms, cannot be healed unaided, even by such sacrifices, nor can real health be restored by this force alone. But it is just as certain, that even if this force is enabled by the true (homoeopathic) healing art, guided by the human understanding, to overpower and overcome (to cure) not only the quickly transient but also the chronic diseases arising from miasms in a direct manner and without such sacrifices, without loss of body and life, nevertheless, it is always this power, the vital

XVlll PREFACE TO FOURTH VOLUME.

force, which conquers. It is in this case as with the army of a countr}^ which drives the enem3^ out of the country; this army ought to be called victorious, although it ma}^ not have won the victory without foreign auxiliaries. It is the organic vital force of our bod}^ which cures natural diseases of every kind directly and without any sacrifices, as soon as it is enabled b}" means of the correct (homoeopathic) remedies to win the victory. This force would not, indeed, have been able to conquer without this assistance; for our organic vital force, taken alone, is onh^ sufficient to maintain the unimpeded progress of life, so long as man is not morbidh^ affected b}^ the hostile operation of forces causing disease.

Unassisted, the vital force is no match to these hostile powers; it hardlj^ opposes a force equal to the hostile operation, and this, indeed, with man}^ signs of its own sufferings (w^hich we call morbid symptoms). By its own power, our \'ital force would never be able to overcome the foe of chronic disease, nor even to conquer transient diseases, without considerable losses inflicted on some parts of the organism, if it remained without external aid, without the assistance of genuine remedies. To give such support is the duty enjoined on the ph3\sician's understanding by the Presenter of life.

As I have said above, our vital force hardly opposes an equal opposition to the foe causing the disease, and 3^et no enem\^ can be overcome except hy a superior force. Onl}^ homoeopathic medicine can give this superior power to the invalidated vital force.

Of itself this vital principle, being onh^ an organic vital force intended to presence an undisturbed health, opposes only a weak resistance to the invading morbific enemy; as the disease grows and increases, it opposes a greater resistance, but at best, it is only an equal resistance; wnth weakly patients it is not even equal, but weaker. This force is neither capable, nor destined, nor created for an overpowering resistance, which will do no harm to itself.

But if we physicians are able to present and oppose to this instinctive vital force its morbific enemy, as it were magnified through the action of homoeopathic medicines — even if it should be enlarged ever>' time only by a little — ^if in this w^ay the image of the morbific foe be magnified to the apprehension of the vital principle through homoeopathic medicines, which in a delusive manner simulate the original disease, we gradually cause and compel this instinctive \4tal force to increase its energies by degrees, and to increase them more and more, and at last to such a degree that it becomes far more powerful than the original disease. The consequence of this is, that the vital force again becomes sovereign in its domain, can again hold and direct the reins of sanitary progress, while the apparent

Preface To Fifth Volume. XIX

increase of the disease caused bj^ homoeopathic medicines, disappears of itself, as soon as we, seeing the preponderance of the restored vital force, i. e., of the restored health, cease to use these remedies. The fund or the fundamental essence of this spiritual vital principle, imparted to us men by the infinitely merciful Creator, is incredibl}^ great, if we physicians understand how to maintain its integrity in days of health, by directing men to a health}^ mode of living, and how to invoke and augment it in diseases by purely homoeopathic treatment.