Organon aphorism §273

In no case under treatment is it necessary and THEREFORE NOT PERMISSIBLE to administer to a patient more than ONE SINGLE, SIMPLE MEDICINAL substance at one time. It is inconceivable how the slightest doubt could exist as to whether it was more consistent with nature and more rational to prescribe a SINGLE, SIMPLE ¹ medicine at one time in a disease or a mixture of several differently acting drugs. It is absolutely not allowed in homeopathy, the one true, simple and natural art of healing, to give the patient AT ONE TIME two different medicinal substances.

Organon aphorism §274

As the true physician finds in simple medicines, administered singly and uncombined, all that he can possibly desire (artificial disease-forces which are able by homeopathic power completely to overpower, extinguish, and permanently cure natural diseases), he will, mindful of the wise maxim that “it is wrong to attempt to employ complex means when simple means suffice,” never think of giving as a remedy any but a single, simple medicinal substance; for these reasons also, because even though the simple medicines were THOROUGHLY PROVED with respect to their pure peculiar effects on the unimpaired healthy state of man, it is yet impossible to foresee HOW two and more medicinal substances might, when compounded, hinder and alter each other’s actions on the human body; and because, on the other hand, a simple medicinal substance when used in diseases, the totality of whose symptoms is accurately known, renders efficient aid by itself alone, if it be homeopathically selected; and supposing the worst case to happen, that it was not chosen in strict conformity to similarity of symptoms, and therefore does no good, it is yet so far useful that it promotes our knowledge of therapeutic agents, because, by the new symptoms excited by it in such a case, those symptoms which this medicinal substance had already shown in experiments, on the healthy human body are confirmed, an advantage that is lost by the employment of all compound remedies. ²

Organon aphorism §275

The suitableness of a medicine for any given case of disease does not depend on its accurate homeopathic selection alone, but likewise on the proper size, or rather smallness, of the dose. If we give TOO STRONG A DOSE of a medicine which may have been even quite homeopathically chosen for the morbid state before us, it must, notwithstanding the inherent beneficial character of its nature, prove injurious by its mere magnitude, and by the unnecessary, too strong impression which, by virtue of its homeopathic similarity of action, it makes upon the vital force which it attacks and, through the vital force, upon those parts of the organism which are the most sensitive, and are already most affected by the natural disease.

Organon aphorism §276

For this reason, a medicine, even though it may be homeopathically suited to the case of disease, does harm in every dose that is too large, and in strong doses it does more harm the greater its homeopathicity and the higher the potency ³ selected, and it does much more injury than any equally large dose of a medicine that is unhomeopathic and in no respect adapted to the morbid state (allopathic) .

Too large doses of an accurately chosen homeopathic medicine, and especially when frequently repeated, bring about much trouble as a rule. They put the patient not seldom in danger of life or make his disease almost incurable. They do indeed extinguish the natural disease so far as the sensation of the life principle is concerned and the patient no longer suffers from the original disease from the moment the too strong dose of the homeopathic medicine acted upon him but he is in consequence more ill with the similar but more violent medicinal DISEASE WHICH is most difficult to destroy. ⁴

Organon aphorism §277

For the same reason, and because a medicine, provided the dose of it was sufficiently small, is all the more salutary and almost marvellously efficacious the more accurately homeopathic its selection has been, a medicine whose selection has been accurately homeopathic must be all the more salutary the more its dose is reduced to the degree of minuteness appropriate for a gentle remedial effect.

Organon aphorism §278

Here the question arises, what is this most suitable degree of minuteness for sure and gentle remedial effect; how small, in other words, must be the dose of each individual medicine, homeopathically selected for a case of disease, to effect the best cure? To solve this problem, and to determine for every particular medicine, what dose of it will suffice for homeopathic therapeutic purposes and yet be so minute that the gentlest and most rapid cure may be thereby obtained—to solve this problem is, as may easily be conceived, not the work of theoretical speculation; not by fine-spun reasoning, not by specious sophistry, can we expect to obtain the solution of this problem. It is just as impossible as to tabulate in advance all imaginable cases. Pure experiment, careful observation of the sensitiveness of each patient, and accurate experience can alone determine this IN EACH INDIVIDUAL CASE, and it were absurd to adduce the large doses of unsuitable (ALLOPATHIC) medicines of the old system, which do not touch the diseased side of the organism homeopathically, but only attack the parts unaffected by the disease, in opposition to what pure experience pronounces respecting the smallness of the doses required for homeopathic cures.

Organon aphorism §279

This pure experience shows UNIVERSALLY, that if the disease do not manifestly depend on a considerable deterioration of an important viscus (even though it belong to the chronic and complicated diseases), and if during the treatment all other alien medicinal influences are kept away from the patient, THE DOSE OF THE HOMEOPATHICALLY SELECTED AND HIGHLY POTENTIZED REMEDY for the beginning of treatment of an important, especially chronic disease can never be prepared so small that it shall not be stronger than the natural disease and shall not be able to overpower it, at least in part and extinguish it from the sensation of the principle of life and thus make a beginning of a cure.

Organon aphorism §280

The dose of the medicine that continues serviceable without producing new troublesome symptoms is to be continued while GRADUALLY ASCENDING, so long as the patient WITH GENERAL IMPROVEMENT, begins to feel in a mild degree the return of one or several old original complaints. This indicates an approaching cure through a gradual ascending of the moderate doses modified each time by succussion (§ 247). It indicates that the vital principle no longer needs to be affected by the similar medicinal disease in order to lose the sensation of the natural disease (§ 148). It indicates that the life principle now free from the natural disease begins to suffer only something of the medicinal disease hitherto known as HOMEOPATHIC AGGRAVATION.

Organon aphorism §281

In order to be convinced of this, the patient is left without any medicine for eight, ten or fifteen days, meanwhile giving him only some powders of sugar of milk. If the few last complaints are due to the medicine simulating the former original disease symptoms, then these complaints will disappear in a few days or hours. If during these days without medicine, while continuing good hygienic regulations nothing more of the original disease is seen, he is probably cured. But if in the later days traces of the former morbid symptoms should show themselves, they are remnants of the original disease not wholly extinguished, which must be treated with renewed higher potencies of the remedy as directed before. If a cure is to follow, the first small doses must likewise be again gradually raised higher, but less and more slowly in patients where considerable irritability is evident than in those of less susceptibility, where the advance to higher dosage may be more rapid. There are patients whose impressionability compared to that of the unsusceptible ones is like the ratio as 1000 to 1.

Organon aphorism §282

It would be a certain sign that the doses were altogether too large, if during treatment, especially in chronic diseases, the first dose should bring forth a so-called HOMEOPATHIC AGGRAVATION, that is, a marked increase of the original morbid symptoms first discovered and in the same way every repeated dose (p. 247) however modified somewhat by shaking before its administration (I. E., more highly dynamized). ⁵

Organon aphorism §283

In order to work wholly according to nature, the true healing artist will prescribe the accurately chosen homeopathic medicine most suitable in all respects in so small a dose on account of this alone. For should he be misled by human weakness to employ an unsuitable medicine, the disadvantage of its wrong relation to the disease would be so small that the patient could through his own vital powers and by means of early opposition (p. 249) of the correctly chosen remedy according to symptom similarity (and this also in the smallest dose) rapidly extinguish and repair it.

Organon aphorism §284

Besides the tongue, mouth and stomach, which are most commonly affected by the administration of medicine, the nose and respiratory organs are receptive of the action of medicines in fluid form by means of olfaction and inhalation through the mouth. But the whole remaining skin of the body clothed with epidermis, is adapted to the action of medicinal solutions, especially if the inunction is connected with simultaneous internal administration. ⁶

Organon aphorism §285

In this way, the cure of very old diseases may be furthered by the physician applying externally, rubbing it in the back, arms, extremities, the same medicine he gives internally and which showed itself curatively. In doing so, he must avoid parts subject to pain or spasm or skin eruption. ⁷

References

1. Two substances, opposite to each other, united into neutral Natrum and middle salts by chemical affinity in unchangeable proportions, as well as sulphuretted metals found in the earth and those produced by technical art in constant combining proportions of sulphur and alkaline salts and earths, for instance (natrum sulph. and calcarea sulph.) as well as those ethers produced by distillation of alcohol and acids may together with phosphorus be considered as SIMPLE medicinal substances by the homeopathic physician and used for patients. On the other hand, those extracts obtained by means of acids of the so-called alkaloids of plants, are exposed to great variety in their preparation (for instance, chinin, strychnine, morphine), and can, therefore, not be accepted by the homeopathic physician as simple medicines, always the same, especially as he possesses, in the plants themselves, in their natural state (Peruvian bark, nux vomica, opium) every quality necessary for healing. Moreover, the alkaloids are not the only constituents of the plants.
2. When the rational physician has chosen the perfectly homeopathic medicine for the well-considered case of disease and administered it internally, he will leave to irrational allopathic routine the practice of giving drinks or fomentations of different plants, of injecting medicated glysters and of rubbing in this or the other ointment.
3. The praise bestowed of late years by some few homceo-pathists on the larger doses is owing to this, either that they chose low dynamizations of the medicine to be administered (as I myself used to do twenty years ago, from not knowing any better), or that the medicines selected were not homeopathic and imperfectly prepared by their manufacturers.
4. Thus, by the continuous use of aggressive allopathic large doses of mercurials against syphilis develop almost incurable mercurial maladies, when yet one or several doses of a mild but active mercurial preparation would certainly have radically cured in a few days the whole venereal disease, together with the chancre, provided it had not been destroyed by external measures (as is always done by allopathy). In the same way, the allopath gives Peruvian bark and quinine in intermittent fever daily in very large doses, where they are correctly indicated and where one very small dose of a highly potentized China would unfailingly help (in marsh intermittents and even in persons who were not affected by any evident psoric disease). A chronic China malady (coupled at the same time with the development of psora) is produced, which, if it does not gradually kill the patient by damaging the internal important vital organs, especially spleen and liver, will put him, nevertheless, suffering for years in a sad state of health. A homeopathic antidote for such a misfortune produced by abuse of large doses of homeopathic remedies is hardly conceivable.

5. The rule to commence the homeopathic treatment of chronic diseases with the smallest possible doses and only gradually to augment them is subject to a notable exception in the treatment of the three great miasms while they still effloresce on the skin, I. E., recently erupted ITCH, the untouched CHANCRE (on the sexual organs, labia, mouth or lips, and so forth), and the FIGWARTS. These not only tolerate, but indeed require, from the very beginning large doses of their specific remedies of ever higher and higher degrees of dynaniization daily (possibly also! several times daily). If this course be pursued, there is no danger to be feared as is the case in the treatment of diseases hidden within, that the excessive dose while it extinguishes the disease, initiates and by continued usage possibly produces a chronic medicinal disease. During external manifestations of these three miasms this is not the case; for from the daily progress of their treatment it can be observed and judged to what degree the large dose withdraws the sensation of the disease from the vital principle day by day; for none of these three can be cured without giving the physician the conviction through their disappearance that there is no longer any further need of these medicines.

   Since diseases in general are but dynamic attacks upon the life principle and nothing material—no MATERIA PECCANS—as their basis (as the old school in its delusion has fabulated for a thousand years and treated the sick accordingly to their ruin) there is also in these cases nothing material to take away, nothing to smear away, to burn or tie or cut away, without making the patient endlessly sicker and more incurable (Chron. Dis. Part 1), than he was before local treatment of these three miasms was instituted. The dynamic, inimical principle exerting its influence upon the vital energy is the essence of these external signs of the inner malignant miasms that can be extinguished solely by the action of a homeopathic medicine upon the vital principle which affects it in a similar but stronger manner and thus extracts the sensation of internal and external spirit-like (conceptual) disease enemy in such a way that it no longer exists for the life principle (for the organism) and thus releases the patient of his illness and he is cured.

   Experience, however, teaches that the itch, plus its external manifestations, as well as the chancre, together with the inner venereal miasm, can and must be cured only by means of specific medicines taken internally. But the figwarts, if they have existed for some time without treatment, have need for their perfect cure, the external application of their specific medicines as well as their internal use at the same time.

6. The power of medicines acting upon the infant through the milk of the mother or wet nurse is wonderfully helpful. Every disease in a child yields to the rightly chosen homeopathic medicines given in moderate doses to the nursing mother and so administered, is more easily and certainly utilized by these new world-citizens than is possible in later years. Since most infants usually have imparted to them psora through the milk of the nurse, if they do not already possess it through heredity from the mother, they may be at the same time protected antipsorically by means of the milk of the nurse rendered medicinally in this manner. But the case of mothers in their (first) pregnancy by means of a mild antipsoric treatment, especially with sulphur dynamizations prepared according to the directions in this edition (p. 270), is indispensable in order to destroy the psora—that producer of most chronic diseases— which is given them hereditarily; destroy it both within themselves and in the foetus, thereby protecting posterity in advance. This is true of pregnant women thus treated; they have given birth to children usually more healthy and stronger, to the astonishment of everybody. A new confirmation of the great truth of the psora theory discovered by me.

7. From this fact may be explained those marvelous cures, however infrequent, where chronic deformed patients, whose skin nevertheless was SOUND AND CLEAN, were cured quickly and permanently after a few baths whose medicinal constituents (by chance) were homceopathically related. On the other hand, the mineral baths VERY OFTEN brought on increased injury with patients, whose eruptions on the skin were suppressed. After a brief period of well-being, the life principle allowed the inner, uncured malady to appear elsewhere, more important for life and health.

   At times instead, the ocular nerve would become paralyzed and produce amaurosis, sometimes the crystaline lens would become clouded, hearing lost, mania or suffocating asthma would follow or an apoplexy would end the sufferings of the deluded patient.

   A fundamental principle of the homeopathic physician (which distinguishes him from every physician of all older schools) is this, that he never employs for any patient a medicine, whose effects on the healthy human has not previously been carefully proven and thus made known to him (§§ 20, 21). To prescribe for the sick on mere conjecture of some possible usefulness for some similar disease or from hearsay “that a remedy has helped in such and such a disease”—such conscienceless venture the philanthropic homeopathist will leave to the allopath. A genuine physician and practitioner of our art will therefore NEVER send the sick to any of the numerous mineral baths, because almost all are unknown so far as their accurate, positive effects on the healthy human organism is concerned, and when misused, must be counted among the most violent and dangerous drugs. In this way, out of a thousand sent to the most celebrated of these baths by ignorant physicians allopathically uncured and blindly sent there perhaps one or two are cured by chance more often return only APPARENTLY cured and the miracle is proclaimed aloud. Hundreds, meanwhile sneak quietly away, more or less worse and the rest remain to prepare themselves for their eternal resting place, a fact that is verified by the presence of numerous well-filled graveyards surrounding the most celebrated of these spas (see Note).

   Note: A true homeopathic physician, one who never acts without correct fundamental principles, never gambles with the life of the sick entrusted to him as in a lottery where the winner is in the ratio of I to 500 or 1000 (blanks here consisting of aggravation or death), will never expose any one of his patients to such danger and send him for good luck to a mineral bath, as is done so frequently by allopaths in order to get rid of the sick in an acceptable manner spoiled by him or others.