Samuel Hahnemann's Organon of homoeopathic medicine.

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

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Samuel Hahnemann's Organon of homoeopathic medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    48/242
    she makes, and which are only crowned with partial success* in acute diseases of a mild form. They did nothing more than imitate the preserving vital * The ordinary school of medicine regarded the means which the organ- ism employs to relieve itself, in those patients who make no use of medicines, as perfect models of imitation ; but they were greatly mistaken. The miser- able and very imperfect attempts which the vital powers make to assist themselves in acute diseases, is a spectacle that ought to excite man to use all the resources of his learning and wisdom, to put an end, by a real cure, to this torment, which nature herself inflicts- If nature cannot cure, homceopa- thically, a disease already existing in the system, by the production of a fresh malady similar to it, (sec 43—46,) a thing not often in her power to effect, (sec. 50,) and if the system, deprived of all external succour, stands alone to triumph over a malady that has just broken out, (her resistance is totally powerless in chronic miasms,) we see nothing but painful and often danger- ous efforts of the constitution to save itself at all hazards, efforts of which death is most frequently the result. Just as little as we can witness what is passing in the interior of our bodies in a healthy condition, and as certainly as these processes remain con- cealed from us, as they lie open to the sight of Omniscience—just so little can we perceive the internal operations of the animal frame, when life is dis- turbed by disease. The action that takes place in diseases manifests itself only by external symptoms, through the medium of which alone our system expresses the troubles that take place in the interior ; so that, in each given case, we never once discover which are those among the morbid symptoms that owe their origin to the primitive action of the disease, and those which are occasioned by the re-action of the vital powers endeavouring to rescue themselves from danger. Both are confounded before our eyes, and only present to us, (reflected on the exterior,) an image of the entire malady within; since the fruitless efforts by which nature, abandoned to herself, makes, to put an end to the malady, are also sufferings which the whole frame undergoes. This is the reason why those evacuations which nature usually excites at the termination of diseases, that have been rapid in their attacks, and which are called crises, often do more harm than good. What the vital powers do in these pretended crises, and in what manner they are accomplished, are mysteries to us, as well as every other internal action which takes place in the organic economy of life. One thing, however, is certain, which is, that in the course of these efforts, there are particular parts that suffer more or less, and which are sacrificed to the safety of others. These operations of the vital power proceeding to combat an acute disease, solely in conformity to the laws of the organic constitution, and not accord- ing to the inspirations of a reflecting mind, are, for the most part, merely a section of allosopathy. In order to free the organs primitively affected, by means of a crisis, it increases the activity of the organs of secretion in order to lead off the evil from the former to the latter : thence result vomiting,