organon

aphorisms 80 – 82

Organon aphorism §80

Incalculably greater and more important than the two chronic miasms just named, however, is the chronic miasm of psora, which, whilst those two reveal their specific internal dyscrasia, the one by the venereal chancre, the other by the cauliflower-like growths, does also, after the completion of the internal infection of the whole organism, announce by a peculiar cutaneous eruption, sometimes consisting only of a few vesicles accompanied by intolerable voluptuous tickling itching (and a peculiar odor), the monstrous internal chronic miasm—the psora, the only real FUNDAMENTAL CAUSE and producer of all the Dther numerous, I may say innumerable, forms of disease, 1 which, under the names of nervous debility, hysteria, hypochondriasis, mania, melancholia, imbecility, madness, epilepsy and convulsions of all sorts, softening of the bones (RACHITIS), scoliosis and cyphosis, caries, cancer, fungus haematodes, neoplasms, gout, haemorrhoids, jaundice, cyanosis, dropsy, amenorrhoea, haemorrhage from the stomach, nose, lungs, bladder and womb, of asthmal and ulceration of the lungs, of impotence and barrenness, of megrim, deafness, cataract, amaurosis, urinary calculus, paralysis, defects of the senses and pains of thousands of kinds, etc., figure in systematic works on pathology as peculiar, independent diseases.

Organon aphorism §81

The fact that this extremely ancient infecting agent has gradually passed, in some hundreds of generations, through many millions of human organisms and has thus attained an incredible development, renders it in some measure conceivable how it can now display such innumerable morbid forms in the great family of mankind, particularly when we consider what a number of circumstances 2 contribute to the production of these great varieties of chronic diseases (secondary symptoms of psora), besides the indescribable diversity of men in respect of their congenital corporeal constitutions, so that it is no wonder if such a variety of injurious agencies acting from within and from without and sometimes continually, on such a variety of organisms permeated with the psoric miasm, should produce an innumerable variety of defects, injuries, derangements and sufferings, which have hitherto been treated of in the old pathological works, 3 under a number of special NAMES, as diseases of an independent character.

Organon aphorism §82

Although, by the discovery of that great source of chronic diseases, as also by the discovery of the specific homeopathic remedies for the psora, medicine has advanced some steps nearer to a knowledge of the nature of the majority of diseases it has to cure, yet, for settling the indication in each case of chronic (psoric) disease he is called on to cure, the duty of a careful apprehension of its ascertainable symptoms and characteristics is as indispensable for the homeopathic physician as it was before that discovery, as no real cure of this or of other diseases can take place without a strict particular treatment (individualization) of each case of disease— only that in this investigation some difference is to be made when the affection is an acute and rapidly developed disease, and when it is a chronic one; seeing that, in acute disease, the chief symptoms strike us and become evident to the senses more quickly, and hence much less time is requisite for tracing the picture of the disease and much fewer questions are required to be asked, 4 as almost everything is self-evident, than in a chronic disease which has been gradually progressing for several years, in which the symptoms are much more difficult to be ascertained.

References

Organon notes and explanatory remarks

I spent twelve years in investigating the source of this incredibly large number of chronic affections, in ascertaining and collecting certain proofs of this great truth, which had remained unknown to all former or contemporary observers, and in discovering at the same time the principal (antipsoric) remedies, which collectively are nearly a match for this thousand-headed monster of disease in all its different developments and forms. I have published my observations on this subject in the book entitled THE CHRONIC DISEASES (4 vols., Dresden, Arnold. [2nd edit., Diisseldorf, Schaub.]) before I had obtained this knowledge I could only teach how to treat the whole number of chronic diseases as isolated, individual maladies, with those medicinal substances whose pure effects had been tested on healthy persons up to that period, so that every case .of chronic disease was treated by my disciples according to the group of symptoms it presented, just like an idiopathic disease, and it was often so far cured that sick mankind rejoiced at the extensive remedial treasures already amassed by the new healing art. How much greater cause is there now for rejoicing that the desired goal has been so much more nearly attained, inasmuch as the recently discovered and far more specific homceopathic remedies for chronic affections arising from psora (properly termed anti-psoric remedies) and the special instructions for their preparation and employment have been published; and from among them the true physician can now select for his curative agents those whose medicinal symptoms correspond in the most similar (homceopathic) manner to the chronic disease he has to cure; and thus, by the employment of (antipsoric) medicines more suitable for this miasm, he is enabled to render more essential service and almost invariably to effect a perfect cure.

Organon notes and explanatory remarks

Some of these causes that exercise a modifying influence on the transformation of psora into chronic diseases manifestly depend sometimes on the climate and the peculiar physical character of the place of abode, sometimes on the very great varieties in the physical and mental training of youth, both of which may have been neglected, delayed or carried to excess, or on their abuse in the business or conditions of life, in the matter of diet and regimen, passions, manners, habits and customs of various kinds.

Organon notes and explanatory remarks

How many improper ambiguous names do not these works contain, under each of which are included excessively different morbid conditions, which often resemble each other in one single symptom only, as AGUE, JAUNDICE, DROPSY, CONSUMPTION, LEUCORRHOEA, HEMORRHOIDS, RHEUMATISM, APOPLEXY, CONVULSIONS, HYSTERIA, HYPOCHONDRIASIS, MELANCHOLIA, MANIA, QUINSY, PALSY, etc., which are represented as diseases of a fixed and unvarying character, and are treated, on account of their name, according to a determinate plan! How can the bestowal of such a name justify an identical medical treatment? And if the treatment is not always to be the same, why make use of an identical name which postulates an identity of treatment? “Nihil sane in artem medicam pestiferum magis unquam irrepsit malum, quam generalia qused-am nomina morbis imponere iisque aptare velle generalem quan-dam medicinam,” says Huxham, a man as clear-sighted as he was estimable on account of his conscientiousness (OP. PHYS. MED., torn. i.). And in like manner Fritze laments (ANNALEN, i, p. 80) “that essentially different diseases are designated by the same name.” Even those epidemic diseases, which undoubtedly may be propagated IN EVERY SEPARATE EPIDEMIC by a peculiar contagious principle which remains unknown to us, are designated, in the old school of medicine, by particular names, just as if they were well-known fixed diseases that invariably recurred under the same form, as HOSPITAL FEVER, GAOL FEVER, CAMP FEVER, PUTRID FEVER, BILIOUS FEVER, NERVOUS FEVER, MUCOUS FEVER, although each epidemic of such roving fevers exhibits itself at every occurrence as another, a NEW disease, such as it has never before appeared in exactly the same form, differing very much, in every instance, in its course, as well as in many of its most striking symptoms and its whole appearance. Each is so far dissimilar to all previous epidemics, whatever names they may bear, that it would be a dereliction of all logical accuracy in our ideas of things were we to give to these maladies, that differ so much among themselves, one of those names we meet with in pathological writings, and treat them all medicinally in conformity with this misused name. The candid Sydenham alone perceived this, when he (OBS. med., cap. ii, De morb. epid.) insists upon the necessity of not considering any epidemic disease as having occurred before and treating it in the same way as another, since all that occur successively, be they ever so numerous, differ from one another: “Nihil quicquam (opinor,) animum universse qua patet medicinae pomceria perlustrantem, tanta admiratione per-cellet, quam discolor ilia et sui plane dissimilis morborum Epidemicorum fades; non tam qua varias ejusdem anni tempes-tates, quam qua discrepantes diversorum ab invicem annorum constitutiones referunt, ab iisque dependent. Quas tam aperta prsedictorum morborum diversitas turn propriis ac sibi peculiar-ibus symptomatis, turn etiam medendi ratione, quam hi ab illis disparem prorsus sibi vendicant, satis illucescit. Ex quibus constat morbus hosce, ut ut externa quadantenus specie, et symptomatis aliquot utrisque pariter supervenientibus, convenire paulo incautioribus videantur, re tamen ipsa (si bene adverteris animum,) aliens admodum esse indolis, et distare ut aera lupinis.”

From all this it is clear that these useless and misused names of diseases ought to have no influence on the practice of the true physician, who knows that he has to judge of and to cure diseases, not according to the similarity of the name of a single one of their symptoms, but according to the totality of the signs of the individual state of each particular patient, whose affection it is his duty carefully to investigate, but never to give a hypothetical guess at it.

If, however, it is deemed necessary sometimes to make use of names of diseases, in order, when talking about a patient to ordinary persons, to render ourselves intelligible in few words, we ought only to employ them as collective names, and tell them, E. G., the patient has A KIND of St. Vitus’s dance, A KIND of dropsy, A KIND of typhus, A KIND of ague; but (in order to do away once for all with the mistaken notions these names give rise to) we should never say he has THE St. Vitus’s dance, THE typhus, THE dropsy, THE ague, as there are certainly no diseases of these and similar names of fixed unvarying character.

Organon notes and explanatory remarks

Hence the following directions for investigating the symptoms are only partially applicable for acute diseases.

  1. I spent twelve years in investigating the source of this incredibly large number of chronic affections, in ascertaining and collecting certain proofs of this great truth, which had remained unknown to all former or contemporary observers, and in discovering at the same time the principal (antipsoric) remedies, which collectively are nearly a match for this thousand-headed monster of disease in all its different developments and forms. I have published my observations on this subject in the book entitled THE CHRONIC DISEASES (4 vols., Dresden, Arnold. [2nd edit., Diisseldorf, Schaub.]) before I had obtained this knowledge I could only teach how to treat the whole number of chronic diseases as isolated, individual maladies, with those medicinal substances whose pure effects had been tested on healthy persons up to that period, so that every case .of chronic disease was treated by my disciples according to the group of symptoms it presented, just like an idiopathic disease, and it was often so far cured that sick mankind rejoiced at the extensive remedial treasures already amassed by the new healing art. How much greater cause is there now for rejoicing that the desired goal has been so much more nearly attained, inasmuch as the recently discovered and far more specific homceopathic remedies for chronic affections arising from psora (properly termed anti-psoric remedies) and the special instructions for their preparation and employment have been published; and from among them the true physician can now select for his curative agents those whose medicinal symptoms correspond in the most similar (homceopathic) manner to the chronic disease he has to cure; and thus, by the employment of (antipsoric) medicines more suitable for this miasm, he is enabled to render more essential service and almost invariably to effect a perfect cure.
  2. Some of these causes that exercise a modifying influence on the transformation of psora into chronic diseases manifestly depend sometimes on the climate and the peculiar physical character of the place of abode, sometimes on the very great varieties in the physical and mental training of youth, both of which may have been neglected, delayed or carried to excess, or on their abuse in the business or conditions of life, in the matter of diet and regimen, passions, manners, habits and customs of various kinds.
  3. How many improper ambiguous names do not these works contain, under each of which are included excessively different morbid conditions, which often resemble each other in one single symptom only, as AGUE, JAUNDICE, DROPSY, CONSUMPTION, LEUCORRHOEA, HEMORRHOIDS, RHEUMATISM, APOPLEXY, CONVULSIONS, HYSTERIA, HYPOCHONDRIASIS, MELANCHOLIA, MANIA, QUINSY, PALSY, etc., which are represented as diseases of a fixed and unvarying character, and are treated, on account of their name, according to a determinate plan! How can the bestowal of such a name justify an identical medical treatment? And if the treatment is not always to be the same, why make use of an identical name which postulates an identity of treatment? “Nihil sane in artem medicam pestiferum magis unquam irrepsit malum, quam generalia qused-am nomina morbis imponere iisque aptare velle generalem quan-dam medicinam,” says Huxham, a man as clear-sighted as he was estimable on account of his conscientiousness (OP. PHYS. MED., torn. i.). And in like manner Fritze laments (ANNALEN, i, p. 80) “that essentially different diseases are designated by the same name.” Even those epidemic diseases, which undoubtedly may be propagated IN EVERY SEPARATE EPIDEMIC by a peculiar contagious principle which remains unknown to us, are designated, in the old school of medicine, by particular names, just as if they were well-known fixed diseases that invariably recurred under the same form, as HOSPITAL FEVER, GAOL FEVER, CAMP FEVER, PUTRID FEVER, BILIOUS FEVER, NERVOUS FEVER, MUCOUS FEVER, although each epidemic of such roving fevers exhibits itself at every occurrence as another, a NEW disease, such as it has never before appeared in exactly the same form, differing very much, in every instance, in its course, as well as in many of its most striking symptoms and its whole appearance. Each is so far dissimilar to all previous epidemics, whatever names they may bear, that it would be a dereliction of all logical accuracy in our ideas of things were we to give to these maladies, that differ so much among themselves, one of those names we meet with in pathological writings, and treat them all medicinally in conformity with this misused name. The candid Sydenham alone perceived this, when he (OBS. med., cap. ii, De morb. epid.) insists upon the necessity of not considering any epidemic disease as having occurred before and treating it in the same way as another, since all that occur successively, be they ever so numerous, differ from one another: “Nihil quicquam (opinor,) animum universse qua patet medicinae pomceria perlustrantem, tanta admiratione per-cellet, quam discolor ilia et sui plane dissimilis morborum Epidemicorum fades; non tam qua varias ejusdem anni tempes-tates, quam qua discrepantes diversorum ab invicem annorum constitutiones referunt, ab iisque dependent. Quas tam aperta prsedictorum morborum diversitas turn propriis ac sibi peculiar-ibus symptomatis, turn etiam medendi ratione, quam hi ab illis disparem prorsus sibi vendicant, satis illucescit. Ex quibus constat morbus hosce, ut ut externa quadantenus specie, et symptomatis aliquot utrisque pariter supervenientibus, convenire paulo incautioribus videantur, re tamen ipsa (si bene adverteris animum,) aliens admodum esse indolis, et distare ut aera lupinis.”

    From all this it is clear that these useless and misused names of diseases ought to have no influence on the practice of the true physician, who knows that he has to judge of and to cure diseases, not according to the similarity of the name of a single one of their symptoms, but according to the totality of the signs of the individual state of each particular patient, whose affection it is his duty carefully to investigate, but never to give a hypothetical guess at it.

    If, however, it is deemed necessary sometimes to make use of names of diseases, in order, when talking about a patient to ordinary persons, to render ourselves intelligible in few words, we ought only to employ them as collective names, and tell them, E. G., the patient has A KIND of St. Vitus’s dance, A KIND of dropsy, A KIND of typhus, A KIND of ague; but (in order to do away once for all with the mistaken notions these names give rise to) we should never say he has THE St. Vitus’s dance, THE typhus, THE dropsy, THE ague, as there are certainly no diseases of these and similar names of fixed unvarying character.

  4. Hence the following directions for investigating the symptoms are only partially applicable for acute diseases.