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§ 181
Let is not be objected that the accessory phenomena and new symptoms
of this disease that now appear should be laid to the account of
the medicament just employed. They owe their origin to it1
certainly, but they are always only symptoms of such a nature as
this disease was itself capable of producing in this organism, and
which were summoned forth and induced to make their appearance by
the medicine given, owing to its power to cause similar symptoms.
In a word, we have to regard the whole collection of symptoms now
perceptible as belonging to the disease itself, as the actual existing
condition, and to direct our further treatment accordingly.
1 When they were not caused by an important error in
regimen, a violent emotion, or a tumultuous revolution in the organism,
such as the occurrence or cessation of the menses, conception, childbirth,
and so forth.
§ 182
Thus the imperfect selection of the medicament, which was in this
case almost inevitable owing to the too limited number of the symptoms
present, serves to complete the display of the symptoms of the disease,
and in this way facilitates the discovery of a second, more accurately
suitable, homoeopathic medicine.
§ 183
Whenever, therefore, the dose of the first medicine ceases to have
a beneficial effect (if the newly developed symptoms do not, by
reason of their gravity, demand more speedy aid - which, however,
from the minuteness of the dose of homoeopathic medicine, and in
very chronic diseases, is excessively rare), a new examination of
the disease must be instituted, the status morbi as it now is must
be noted down, and a second homoeopathic remedy selected in accordance
with it, which shall exactly suit the present state, and one which
shall be all the more appropriate can then be found, as the group
of symptoms has become larger and more complete.1
1 In cases where the patient (which, however, happens
excessively seldom in chronic, but not infrequently in acute, diseases)
feels very ill, although his symptoms are very indistinct, so that
this state may be attributed more to the benumbed state of the nerves,
which does not permit the patient’s pains and sufferings to be distinctly
perceived, this torpor of the internal sensibility is removed by
opium, and in its secondary action the symptoms of the disease become
distinctly apparent.
§ 184 Fifth Edition
In like manner, after each new dose of medicine has exhausted its
action, the state of the disease that still remains is to be noted
anew with respect to its remaining symptoms, and another homoeopathic
remedy sought for, as suitable as possible for the group of symptoms
now observed, and so on until the recovery is complete.
§ 184 Sixth Edition
In like manner, after each new dose of medicine has exhausted its
action, when it is no longer suitable and helpful, the state of
the disease that still remains is to be noted anew with respect
to its remaining symptoms, and another homoeopathic remedy sought
for, as suitable as possible for the group of symptoms now observed,
and so on until the recovery is complete.
§ 185
Among the one-sided disease an important place is occupied by the
so-called local maladies, by which term is signified those changes
and ailments that appear on the external parts of the body. Till
now the idea prevalent in the schools was that these parts were
alone morbidly affected, and that the rest of the body did not participate
in the disease - a theoretical, absurd doctrine, which has led to
the most disastrous medical treatment.
§ 186 Fifth Edition
Those so-called local maladies which have been produced a short
time previously, solely by an external lesion, still appear at first
sight to deserve the name of local disease. But then the lesion
must be very trivial, and in that case it would be of no great moment.
For in the case of injuries accruing to the body from without, if
they be at all severe, the whole living organism sympathizes; there
occur fever, etc. The treatment of such diseases is relegated to
surgery; but this is right only in so far as the affected parts
require mechanical aid, whereby the external obstacles to the cure,
which can only be expected to take place by the agency of the vital
force, may be removed by mechanical means, e.g., by the reduction
of dislocations, by bandages to bring together the lips of wounds,
by the extraction of foreign bodies that have penetrated into the
living parts, by making an opening into a cavity of the body in
order to remove an irritating substance or to procure the evacuation
of effusions or collections of fluids, by bringing into apposition
the broken extremities of a fractured bone and retaining them in
exact contact by an appropriate bandage, etc. But when in such injuries
the whole living organism requires, as it always does, active dynamic
aid to put it in a position to accomplish the work of healing, e.g.
when the violent fever resulting from extensive contusions, lacerated
muscles, tendons and blood-vessels requires to be removed by medicine
given internally, or when the external pain of scalded or burnt
parts needs to be homoeopathically subdued, then the services of
the dynamic physician and his helpful homoeopathy come into requisition.
§ 186 Sixth Edition
Those so-called local maladies which have been produced a short
time previously, solely by an external lesion, still appear at first
sight to deserve the name of local disease. But then the lesion
must be very trivial, and in that case it would be of no great moment.
For in the case of injuries accruing to the body from without, if
they be at all severe, the whole living organism sympathizes; there
occur fever, etc. The treatment of such diseases is relegated to
surgery; but this is right only in so far as the affected parts
require mechanical aid, whereby the external obstacles to the cure,
which can only be expected to take place by the agency of the vital
force, may be removed by mechanical means, e.g., by the reduction
of dislocations, by needles and bandages to bring together the lips
of wounds, by mechanical pressure to still the flow of blood from
open arteries, by the extraction of foreign bodies that have penetrated
into the living parts, by making an opening into a cavity of the
body in order to remove an irritating substance or to procure the
evacuation of effusions or collections of fluids, by bringing into
apposition the broken extremities of a fractured bone and retaining
them in exact contact by an appropriate bandage, etc. But when in
such injuries the whole living organism requires, as it always does,
active dynamic aid to put it in a position to accomplish the work
of healing, e.g. when the violent fever resulting from extensive
contusions, lacerated muscles, tendons and blood-vessels requires
to be removed by medicine given internally, or when the external
pain of scalded or burnt parts needs to be homoeopathically subdued,
then the services of the dynamic physician and his helpful homoeopathy
come into requisition.
§ 187
But those affections, alterations and ailments appearing on the
external parts, that do not arise from any external injury or that
have only some slight external wound for their immediate exciting
cause, are produced in quite another manner; their source lies in
some internal malady. To consider them as mere local affections,
and at the same time to treat them only, or almost only, as it were
surgically, with topical applications - as the old school have done
from the remotest ages - is as absurd as it is pernicious in its
results.
§ 188
These affections were considered to be merely topical, and were
therefore called local diseases, as if they were maladies exclusively
limited to those parts wherein the organism took little or no part,
or affections of these particular visible parts of which the rest
of the living organism, so to speak, knew nothing.1
1 One of the many great and pernicious blunders of the
old school.
§ 189
And yet very little reflection will suffice to convince us that
no external malady (not occasioned by some important injury from
without) can arise, persist or even grow worse without some internal
cause, without the co-operation of the whole organism, which must
consequently be in a diseased state. It could not make its appearance
at all without the consent of the whole of the rest of the health,
and without the participation of the rest of the living whole (of
the vital force that pervades all the other sensitive and irritable
parts of the organism); indeed, it is impossible to conceive its
production without the instrumentality of the whole (deranged) life;
so intimately are all parts of the organism connected together to
form an indivisible whole in sensation and functions. No eruption
on the lips, no whitlow can occur without previous and simultaneous
internal ill-health.
§ 190
All true medical treatment of a disease on the external parts of
the body that has occurred from little or no injury from without
must, therefore, be directed against the whole, must effect the
annihilation and cure of the general malady by means of internal
remedies, if it is wished that the treatment should be judicious,
sure, efficacious and radical.
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