Organon of medicine / by Samuel Hahnemann ; translated from the fifth German edition, by R. E. Dudgeon.

  • Hahnemann, Samuel Christian Friedrich, 1755-1843.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Organon of medicine / by Samuel Hahnemann ; translated from the fifth German edition, by R. E. Dudgeon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    broken sleep, feeble and desponding, often with great swelling of the legs, of the abdomen, and even of the face and hands, he creeps out of the hospital, dismissed as cured, and long years of homoeopathic treatment are not unfrequently required, merely to rescue from death, not to say to cure, and restore to health, such a profoundly injured (cured 1), artificially cachectic patient. The old school is happy when it can convert the dull stupor that occurs in typhus fevers, by means of valerian, which in this case acts antipathically, into a kind of liveliness of a few hours’ duration; but as this does not continue, and to force a repetition of the animation, ever increasing doses of valerian are requisite, it is not long before the largest doses cease to have the desired effect. But as this palliative is only stimulant in its primary action, in its secondary action the vital force is paralysed, and such a patient is certain of a speedy death from this rational treat- ment of the old school; none can escape. And yet the adherents of this routine art could not perceive that by these proceedings they most certainly killed their patients; they ascribed the death to the malig- nancy of the disease. A palliative of a still more horrible character for chronic patients, is the digitalis purpurea, with which the old school practitioners imagine they do such excellent service, when they endeavour, by means of it, to bring down the quick, irritated pulse (purely symptomatic!) in chronic diseases. True it is, that