Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/203

* HOMCEOPATHY. 175 HOMCEOPATHY. from English into German, and by experiments made upon himself and others in corroboration. It is not claimed that Hahnemann first noted similarity of drug action and diseased condition, for many times in previous medical history had isolated instances been noticed; but he was the first to urge a general application of his principles and to state the propositions upon which were based the new treatment. Jn 1806, in a treatise entitled The Medicine of Experience, he indicated the name by which the new system of treatment should be known, and thenceforward Homceop- ATUY designated the science and art, as did 'homo-opathic' the practitioner. In ISIO he published the Organon of Rational Medicine, which became and remains the em- bodiment of the fundamental methods of homoe- opathy. These fundamentals may be stated briefly thus: ( 1 ) Proving of medicines upon the healthy. (2) Selection and administration of medicines according to the law of similars. (3) The single remedy. (4) The minimum dose. A medicine is 'proved,' according to the homoeopathic method, as follows: A fluid ex- tract or a tincture of a drug is selected for 'proving.' Of this medicinal preparation a dose of one drop, two drops, or five drops is given to a healthy person at certain inten'als, during which the person notes his symptoms. Gradually increasing doses are administered until the ex- perimenter is satisfied and a set of tables of symptoms, believed to be caused by the drug in the healthy person, have been compiled. These tables of symptoms are then compared with symptoms noted in various diseases. Upon dis- covering that a disease presents a similar set of symptoms to those noted, by the healths person, as caused by the test drug, the homceopathist argues that this drug will be the remedy for this disease. His method of reasoning is that if a drug produces certain s.vmptoms in health it will cure a disease which causes similar symptoms. Upon this basis lies the fundamental 'law of similars,' generally stated in Latin, similia simili- hus curantur. In the way just described. Hahnemann proved upon himself and others more than ninety drugs. Societies were formed for the purpose: and since his death many medicinal substances have been tested to learn toxic, pathogenic, and curative power, if any. Thus each drug had its patho- genesis or 'picture.' and the one corresponding to the totality of diseased symptoms as elicited from the patient by the physician, if adminis- tered, W(mUI, according to the homoeopathic claim, result in a cure. Xo two drugs having precisely the same picture and no two patients the like totality of symptoms, he therefore in- dividualized his cases, and declared that a single remedy should be given. Later in life he modi- fied this to some extent, and. recognizing the genus epidemictis. prescribed without seeing the patients, as in the cholera epidemic of 1831. When he began prescribing according to his law. he gave massive doses: but, lielieving that the Iniman system when diseased is much more sensitive than in health, he gradually lessened the quantity. Then it was that he wrote the Spirit of the Homceopathic Doctrine, in which he argued the morbific cause of disease and the dynamization of remedies. In regard to disease, Hahnemann recognized the morbific cause, which, acting upon the morbid properties in the tissues, developed disease. Therefoi-e, lie argued, disease is a morbid proi)erty developed into an active patliological state by the inlluenee of a corre- sponding morbific force. IJkewise regarding drugs. His idea was that the drug forces are cosmic principles or agents of the same order as the disease-developing forces; the germinal principles inherent in the plant correspond with the morbid properties in the tissues, and drugs correspond with the fully developed disease. He believed that the morbific cause is in closer af- finity with the drug than with the tissues of the organism, and this union secures the restoration of the organism to a state of physiological har- mony, lie said, "As the human organism, even in health, is more readily influenced by drugs than by natural morbific agents, this influence is felt in the highest degree by an organism which is properly predisposed by disease, provided the artificial drug disease is homoeopathic to the nalural malady. Hence the smallest dose of the remedial agent is sufficient for a cure, for the spiritual power of the medicine does not. in this instance, accomplish its object by means of quantit.v, but by potentiality and quality; a larger dose might be injurious, for this reason, that a larger dose does not only not overcome the moibid affection more certainly than the smallest possible dose of the homoeopath ically ad- ministered agent, but likewise imposes a complex medicinal disease, which is always a malady, though it runs its course in a shorter time." Herein lie the doctrines of small doses and 'medi- cinal aggravations.' From this mode of account- ing for a cure in accordance with the law 'Simi- lia similibus.' there naturally followed the 'po- tentization' of drugs, according to Hahnemann. The attenuation was accomplished in the fol- lowing manner: If the drug was a vegetable substance, a strong tincture was made and called mother-tincture. Of this, two drops were taken, added to 08 drops of alcohol, and agitated. This sas marked first dilution. Two drops of this with 98 drops of alcohol constituted the second dilution, the third in a siiuilar manner, and so on. This constituted what was known as the centesimal scale. Some preferred adding one drop of tinctuje to nine drops of alcohol, the label being first decimal, second, third, etc., according to the number of attenuation desired. Insoluble substances were triturated with sugar of milk in the proportions of one grain of the drug to 90 of sugar, or 9. as the physician deemed best. When the fifth trituration was readied, the substance, now claimed to be soluble, was dissolved in dis- tilled water, and the further process carried on with alcohol as in the case of tinctures. Hahnemann writes, quoting from the first American edition of Organon dc' Mcdicini (Phila- delphia, 1836) : "Diseases are dynamic (spiritu- al) aberrations, which our spiritual existence undergoes in its mode of feeling and acting — that is to .say, immaterial changes in the state of health" (p. 19). ". homoeopathic dose, however, can scarcely ever be made so small as not to amend and, iiuleed. perfectly cure" (p. 157). "It will stand good as a homoeopathic rule of cure, refutable by no experience whatever, that the best dose of the rif^htly selected medicine is ever the smallest" (p. 187). Wlien describing the preparation of 'potences' of fluid dilutions.