Heilkunst Series
Selected Topics In
Homeopathy: A New Look at
Old Issues
by Rudi Verspoor, FHCH HD(RHom.) DMH
in resonant collaboration with
Steven Decker, FHCH(Hon.)
Copyright 2003 by R. Verspoor and S. Decker.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in articles, reviews and academic papers.
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Introduction
It is now more than 200 years since Dr. Samuel
Hahnemann (1755-1843) gave up the practice of allopathic
medicine and began, in the nature of all genius, the long,
arduous and often lonely search for a better way to restore the
sick to health, which is commonly termed homeopathy,
although his system of remediation, which he termed Heilkunst
(the art, literally, of making people whole), extends beyond the
proper meaning of this term.
In these intervening years, as during much of his life, there
has been little understanding of the complete aspects of this
new system of medicine. As a result, the secondary homeopathic
literature, as well as various translations of his works, consist of
confusion rather than clarity, misconceptions rather than
understanding and in some cases, deception rather than
perception of the truth of what is written in the legacy
bequeathed to mankind by Dr. Hahnemann.
Because of the failure of generations of followers to fully
understand the nature of genius as embedded in Hahnemann’s
writings, in particular, the Organon der Heilkunst (Organon of
the Art of Remediation), which is linked to numerous of his
other works, such as Chronic Diseases and occassional articles
(collected under the misleading title,Lesser Writings), students
and practitioners alike of his system remain confused about
basic concepts critical to the proper and effective application of
therapeutic medicine according to Hahnemann’s insights.
This failure of comprehension is due to both faulty
translation and to an inability to fully comprehend the depth of
meaning embedded in Hahnemann’s writings. It is the nature
of genius to be ahead of its time and to leave to future
generations the task and joy of unfolding the treasures that lie
hidden. What is required in this case is both a command of the
German language, including a deep understanding of the
cultural and philosophical context within which genius operates
in order to be able to discern the full meaning of the terms used,
and to experience clinically the application of the system of
remediation provided to us. To this the authors can reasonably
lay claim.
The purpose of this book is to re-examine basic concepts in
the conventional homeopathic medical field necessary to a
genuine practitioner of the remedial art, as Hahnemann would
say (Heilkünstler), in the light of new insights based on a new
inter-linear translation of the extended Organon (that is,
including its full references) by Steven Decker.
The complete results of the extensive collaboration of the
authors regarding Hahnemann’s writings have been published
in Homeopathy Re-examined (2001) and its successor, The
Dynamic Legacy: from Homeopathy to Heilkunst (2002),
available as an on-line book (completely searchable and crosslinked) from the publisher. The reader is encouraged to read
this last work for the more extensive context and understanding
of Hahnemann’s complete medical system, Heilkunst. As
research proceeds, this work is continually being expanded and
refined.
The reader is also referred to the public material available
on the Internet through the website, www.heilkunst.com.
Table of Contents
Introduction iii
CHAPTER 1
Direction of Cure 1
Hahnemann’s Indications 1
Hering’s Law 3
Additional Insights 6
Misconceptions 9
More Than One Disease 10
Summary 14
CHAPTER 2
Aggravation and Healing
Reaction 17
Homeopathic Aggravation 17
The Healing Reaction 19
CHAPTER 3
New Symptoms: What They
Mean? 25
Cases With Insufficient Remedies 26
Cases With Insufficient Symptoms 26
New Symptoms Not Related to Disease 28
Principle of Intensity 28
CHAPTER 4
Dual Nature: Disease and
Remediation 31
The Dual Nature of the Living Power 32
Sustentive Power 33
References to the Sustentive Power 34
The Generative Power 35
The Duality of the Disease Process 41
i
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 5
Suppression 43
CHAPTER 6
Isopathy 47
History of Isopathic Remedies 47
Hering and Isopathic Remedies 48
Lux and the Thesis of Equality 49
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic
Remedies 50
Bibliography i
ii
CHAPTER 1
Direction
of Cure
How do we know that the medicine is working, namely that a
cure is taking place? This is a central question that rightfully occupies each practitioner.
Hahnemann’s Indications
The first guidance on this issue comes from Hahnemann himself. He gives us an indication in terms of the expansive (improvement) and contractive (worsening) aspects of the patient that can be
discerned by the knowing physician.
§253.1. Among the signs which show a small beginning of
improvement or aggravation (not visible to everyone) in
all diseases, especially the rapidly arising (acute) diseases, the state of mind [Gemüt] and of the entire behavior
of the patient is the surest and most enlightening.
§253.2. In the case of an ever-so-slight beginning of
improvement — a greater comfort, an increasing composure, freedom of spirit, increased courage, a kind of
returning naturalness.
§253.3. But in the case of an ever-so-small beginning of
aggravation — a more self-conscious, helpless state of mind
[Gemüt], of the spirit, of the whole behavior, and of all
attitudes, positions and actions, drawing more pity to
itself, which [state] allows itself with exact attentiveness
to be easily seen or shown but not to be [easily] described
in words.
Hahnemann also spoke in the Introduction to the Organon, as
well as in the aphoristic part, of the disease proceeding from the
Direction of Cure
1
Hahnemann’s Indications
less to the more “noble” organs, a hierarchical observation based on
the structural functions of living organisms.
1.4. It falsely deems the maladies located on the outer parts
of the body as merely local and existing alone there by
themselves, and imagines them to have been remedied if it
has driven away the same by external means, so that the
inner malady now is necessitated to break out at a m o r e
noble and critical place.
45.2. ...or, with milder impinging action on the perhaps
still recent local-malady, he expelled the local symptom,
effectuated by nature on the skin for the relief of the inner
suffering, from its site by means of a sort of misapplied
external homeopathism, thus renewing the inner more
dangerous malady, and seduced the Living Power into the
preparation of a worse metaschematism through t h i s
expulsion of the local symptom onto other more
n o b l e p a r t s ; the patient got dangerous eye-inflammations, or deafness, or stomach-cramps, or epileptic seizures, or asthmatic or apoplectic attacks, or mental or
emotional [Gemüt] disease, etc., for it.
§.205.1.a]1 Therefore, I cannot recommend, for example,
local eradication of so-called labial or facial cancer (a
fruit of advanced Psora? not seldom in unity with Syphilis?) by the Arsenical means of Frere Cosme, not only
because it is extremely painful and frequently fails, but
more because when this means indeed locally frees the
bodily site from the malignant ulcer, the fundamental malady is not diminished in the least hereby; the Sustentive
Power of Life is therefore necessitated to t r a n s f e r t h e
focus for the great internal malady to a still
m o r e n o b l e s i t e (as it does with all metastases) and
allows blindness, deafness, insanity, suffocative asthma,
dropsy, apoplexy, etc. to follow.
§.216.1. The cases are not rare when a death-threatening
so-called somatic disease — a suppuration of the lung or the
corruption of any other n o b l e o r g a n , or another heated
(acute) disease, e.g. in labor, etc., degenerates by rapid
ascent of the hitherto mind symptom into an insanity, a
kind of melancholy, or a frenzy and thereby makes all
deadly peril of the somatic symptoms vanish...
891 ... when the psora again lifts its head, either with the
same disease symptoms as before, or with others similar
but gradually more troublesome than the first, or with
symptoms germinating in n o b l e r p a r t s . ( Chronic Diseases, translation by SRD, bold added)
2
Direction of Cure
Hering’s Law
Hahenmann gave us further guidance regarding the curative
process, which is the opposite of the process followed by suppressive treatment (allopathic medicine).
998 The most recently added symptoms to a chronic disease
which has been left to itself (not botched by medical bungling) are the first to yield in an antipsoric treatment; but
the oldest maladies and those which have been most constant
and unchanged, among which are the constant local maladies, are the last to give way, and only after all the remaining disorders have disappeared and health has in all other
respects almost totally returned. (Chronic Diseases,
translation by SRD)
Essentially the Life Force, when not weakened or opposed by
suppressive measures, initially expresses the chronic disease on the
outer parts, and only over time, deeper in to the “more noble” parts.
Thus, the direction of cure takes place, in chronic disease, from the
most recent symptom to the first, or from the “more noble” to the
“less noble.”
Hahnemann also spoke in general terms about the improvement in well-being (Wohlseyn) and soundness (Gesundheit). For
Hahnemann, this was a function of what he called kennen (or supersensible knowing)1 and would be determined as part of the observation following the prescription.
Hering’s Law
One of Hahnemann’s closest followers, Constantine Hering, a
fellow German who emigrated to the United States and corresponded closely with Hahnemann in his latter years, has also provided us with guidance, which has become better known.
This guidance is often referred to as Hering’s Laws, or Principles, of Cure. Hering based his guidelines on Hahnemann’s teachings as well as his own observations. He set them out in the
prologue to the first American edition of the Organon, New York,
1. See The Dynamic Legacy: from Homeopathy to Heilkunst for a discussion and explanation of the two forms of knowing found in Hahnemann’s writings.
Direction of Cure
3
Hering’s Law
1845. In the prologue, Hering borrows from an earlier essay he had
written, Guide to the Progressive Development of Homoeopathy.
First, Hering describes the natural development of a disease:
As acute diseases terminate in an eruption upon the skin,
which divides, dries up, and then passes off, so it is with
many chronic diseases. All diseases diminish in intensity,
improve, and are cured by the internal organism freeing
itself from them little by little, the internal disease
approaches more and more to the external tissues, until it
finally arrives to the skin.
Next he states the principle that he derives from this observation:
Every homoeopathic physician must have observed that the
improvement in pain takes place from above downward; and
in disease, from within outward.
After further emphasizing the importance of the skin eruption
in preventing a more serious disease, Hering goes on again to spell
out the principles:
The thorough cure of a chronic disease is indicated by the
most important organs being first relieved; the disease
passes off in the order in which the organs had been
affected, the more important being relieved first, the less
important next, and the skin last.
Even the superficial observer will not fail in recognizing
this law of order. An improvement which takes place in a
different order can never be relied upon.
Hering then claims that all this is based on Hahnemann’s
important rule to attend to the moral symptoms [mental/emotional],
and to judge of the degree of homeopathic adaptation existing
between the remedy and the disease, by the improvement which
takes place in the moral condition (morale), and the general wellbeing of the patient.
In summary, Hering’s observations are as follows:
1. The "...improvement in pain takes place from above downward..."
Note that this direction of cure relates to pain or pathology.
Pain is a sensation that is mainly physical and superficial, in terms
of the main nerve endings. A painful rash would move down from
head to toe, as does the characteristic rash of measles.
4
Direction of Cure
Hering’s Law
2. "...and in diseases, from within outward." "The thorough
cure of a chronic disease is indicated by the most important organs
being first relieved..."
Hering now turns to the disease itself. The order of remediation
is here from deeper in the organism to the outer layer, the skin, from
the centre to the circumference. This accounts for the numerous
skin eruptions during treatment even where none had existed
before.
However, Hering also qualifies this, as does Hahnemann, by
stating that the order is one of importance – from more important to
least important. Hahnemann always speaks of "nobler" organs,
implying a hierarchy of organs, including those of the emotional
mind (Gemüt). Thus, the direction of cure here is not simply spatial,
but dynamic and functional.
3. "...the disease passes off in the order in which the organs had
been affected, the more important being relieved first, the less
important next, and the skin last."
Here Hering again refers to a disease. He further specifies that
this order of "within outward" is the same order as the disease process.
Let’s take an example, which reflects any acute miasm or acute
epidemic disease:
Indeed, just like symptoms appear first in the psychic
sphere, then in the organs and lastly on the surface, healing
follows the same order because in this case there is no difference between the order of getting ill and of getting cured.
Infections, eruptive diseases which, in a few days, allow us
to observe objectively and clearly what happens in an acute
case are typical examples. At the beginning the child is sad,
depressive and changes his temper (psychic symptoms).
Then he has chills after which he feels terribly tired, has
fever (he can get very thirsty), suffers from anorexia, etc.
(general symptoms). Lastly, the eruption appears starting
by his face, neck, trunk, limbs, and ending in the same
order. Before the eruption is cured, the psychic and general
symptoms have already been normalized, and this proves
Hering's observation is correct. The same happens with
chronic pathological manifestations. (all the above quotes of
Hering as well as this one, taken from Eizayaga, Treatise on
Homeopathic Medicine, p. 105).
Direction of Cure
5
Additional Insights
So it is clear that Hering is speaking of the cure of one disease
in the patient. What are we to do, however, where we face more
than one disease in a patient?2
In fact, we can observe in nature herself that cure proceeds
from one disease to the next, in the reverse order of time. Let’s see
how this was expressed almost a century ago by one of the most
influential homeopaths in the United States, James Tyler Kent:
...The first prescription antidotes the drug and liberates the
patient from the drug disease, and then you see the most
acute or l a s t a p p e a r i n g n a t u r a l d i s e a s e which comes
back first. This is in accordance with fixed law; the last
miasma or the last symptoms that have been made to disappear will be the first to return and go away to appear no
more. (Kent, Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy, p. 121,
bold added)
Thus, within a given disease, the curative process occurs in the
same order or direction as the disease (assuming that the disease
has not been suppressed). However, between diseases the curative
process is in the reverse order of the diseases, that is, in the reverse
order in which the diseases were acquired, the most recent going
first.
Additional Insights
There appears also to be a difference in the process of cure
resulting from the two sides of disease and from the two actions
involved, the initial action and the counter-action.3
This discovery comes initially from an observation by Rajan
Sankaran, which was identified and developed by Steven Decker.
Sankaran, in defending himself against the concern that his
treatment of the state (one side of disease) leads to an apparent
2. That this is entirely possible and probable can be seen by reference to Aphorism 42 of
the Organon.
3. See The Dynamic Legacy: from Homeopathy to Heilkunst for the complete explanation
of this aspect of Hahnemann’s medical system, as well as An Affair to Remember on
the history of the use of dual remedies for the two sides of disease. Both books were
written by Rudi Verspoor and Steven Decker.
6
Direction of Cure
Additional Insights
worsening of the mental/emotional level, made a particular observation. In this, he implied that the central disturbance was separate
from the pathology (that is, symptoms).
Disease always proceeds from the central disturbance to the
periphery. In pathology, it proceeds from the periphery
towards the centre; this is the idea. In a curative direction,
disease first abates from an important organ that is affected
pathologically, and the last disorder to go will be that of the
least important organ affected; only then will the central
disturbance be relieved. When you have a patient of Lyco.,
he will first have lack of confidence, i.e., the central state
of Lyco., and following this if his central disturbance cannot be contained, he will develop eczema and asthma. When
cure takes place, his asthma will go first, the eczema second, but lack of confidence will be there throughout. If lack
of confidence goes then there is no basis for the eczema or
asthma. Without the central disturbance, there cannot be
peripheral pathology, because peripheral pathology is only
a diversion from the central disturbance. (The Spirit of
Homeopathy,
p. 97)
As Hahnemann points out, the initial action (often erroneously
referred to in most translations and secondary texts as the primary
action) of the disease Wesen creates a profound alteration of the
state of the patient into a disease state (as a result of the engenderment of the disease Wesen onto the human Wesen). This is what
Rajan Sankaran calls the central disturbance and what Hahnemann
identified as the unique mental and emotional state of each disease
in §210-212. Steven Decker has pointed out that this involves the
constant Wesen diseases, one side of disease as identified by Aegidi
in 1833 in a communication to Hahanemann, and as accepted by
Hahnemann as consistent with his system.4
This realm, Decker further points out (in private communication), of the constant Wesen side of disease per se and the initial
action operates independently from that of the peripheral disturbances, which represent what Hahnemann called the pathic side.
Sankaran observes that the central disturbance may actually
increase as a result of state-based prescriptions, whereas the peripheral symptoms may actually improve.
4. For the full story behind the dual nature of disease and the use of dual remedies, see An
Affair to Remember, by Rudi Verspoor and Steven Decker.
Direction of Cure
7
Additional Insights
In the context of the insights into the two sides of disease, we
can grasp that the state-based or constant Wesen remedy (Sankaran’s state-based prescription) will create a profound reaction at the
level of disease. This can be perceived as a worsening at that level,
but is really a strong counter-action of the sustentive power to
match the profound initial action of the remedy.
The pathic remedy, in contrast, will create a reaction at the
level of pathology (symptoms) and we can then see changes in the
periphery, but not necessarily changes in the central disturbance
(confirming that disease is still there).
In the case of continued and repeated emotional traumas in particular, the treatment of the central (ontological) disturbance does
indeed, in our experience, result in seeming exacerbation of the
psychic state when the central traumas (usually in childhood) are
dealt with. Psychoanalysts have made a similar observation as they
approach the central issues in their cases.
The external emotional traumas derive from our core delusions
or arch beliefs. Without them, we would feel emotions (part of
being human), but we would not be open to emotional disease.
Thus, as one approaches the central internal emotional traumas, the
psychic state (delusion) that is connected to them inevitably is
affected.
Hahnemann also gives us an example of this in the footnote to
Aphorism 210:
§210.3.a]1 How often, for instance, in the most painful,
protracted diseases do we not meet with a mild, gentle
mindedness [Gemüt], so that the Remedial-Artist feels
impelled to bestow attention and sympathy upon the patient.
§210.3.a]2 If he, however, conquers the disease and
restores the patient again. — as is not seldom possible in
the homeopathic mode — the physician is often astonished
and startled over the dreadful alteration of the mind
[Gemüt], where he often sees ingratitude, hard-heartedness, deliberate malice and the most degrading, most
revolting tempers of humanity come forward, which had
been precisely the patient's own in his former days.
8
Direction of Cure
Misconceptions
Misconceptions
The common (mis)conception of the direction of cure, or what
is usually referred to as Hering’s Law or Hering’s Principles of
Cure is that the symptoms of the patient disappear in the following
order:
• from above, down
• from within, out
• in the reverse direction of their appearance
As we can see from the above historical analysis, this is somewhat misleading. “From above, down” is often taken to mean that
the mental and emotional symptoms of the patient will first improve
and the physical later. This is not what Hering meant by the first
part of his guidelines, which refer only to the nerve or musculoskeletal pain or skin eruption.
“From within, out” is limited to a spatial conception of the
movement of the cure through the organs of the body. Instead, Hering (as Hahnemann) had a qualitative understanding of the direction, which was hierarchical in nature, linked to the idea of
“nobility.” This of course, requires a deeper understanding of the
qualitative ranking of the different organs and the understanding
that there are also supersensible organs that need to be taken into
account.5
§59.3...- die lähmige Trägheit der Körper-und Geistesorgane... (the lame sluggishness of the corporeal-and spiritual organs)
§215.1... die unsichtbar feinen Geistes-oder GemüthsOrgane... (the invisibly fine spirit or mind-organs).
In this sense, the mental and emotional state of the patient can
be seen as the most important in terms of nobility and that which
will be restored to health first.
5. This is a crucial requirement to grasping the full import of Hahnemann’s teachings, but
is not to be found anywhere within the existing literature. A full exposition of the
supersensible nature of disease and remediation as found in Hahnemann’s writings is
set out in The Dynamic Legacy: from Homeopathy to Heilkunst.
Direction of Cure
9
More Than One Disease
Finally, the direction of the symptoms in terms of order of
appearance is not in the reverse order. This last part of the oftquoted part of Hering’s Law is wrong. Both Hahnemann and Hering make absolutely clear that the symptoms disappear in the same
order as the disease.
Why has this part been so misconstrued? There appear to be
two reasons. First, both Hahnemann and Hering are referring to disease that has been allowed to run its natural course, that is, that has
not been suppressed. This is not often the case. In the case of suppression of the more superficial skin disorders, treatment that is curative will lead to a perceived reversal of the suppression. Thus, an
eczematous eruption that has been suppressed leading to asthma in
a child will return after the asthmatic condition has gone. This is not
to be construed as a reversal of the disease process, but a reversal of
suppression, which is quite another matter altogether.
Second, there remains a deep misunderstanding, indeed a profound ignorance in many cases, about the fact that there can be
more than one disease in the patient.
Even Kent was confused about this. He recognized that there
were different diseases, but did not carefully distinguish this from
the matter of symptoms of the patient. Often he referred to “groups
of symptoms” in this regard. And it was these groups of symptoms
(disease) that passed off in the reverse order.
It is worth looking at this issue in more detail, because it lies at
the heart of the confusion over the direction of cure.
More Than One Disease
We often hear in the conventional secondary texts and teachings on homeopathy that it is the patient that is to be treated, not the
disease. Disease diagnosis is seen as something false and to be
avoided. When looked at from a common sense perspective, it is
readily apparent that this is either a generalized, abstract and, therefore, rather useless observation, or a serious miscomprehension of
what Hahnemann actually wrote and one that needs to be addressed
seriously.
10
Direction of Cure
More Than One Disease
The opposite of what is taught about Hering’s Law is actually
the case: it is disease that is treated by the medicine, not the patient,
or we could say it is the disease in the patient that must be removed.
Either way, the disease is the thing we must focus on, not the
patient (except to the extent it relates to the disease). The action of
the medicine has a specific effect, and that is to destroy or annihilate the disease. It is not, as is often portrayed, again in generalized,
abstract and somewhat mystical language, that the medicine stimulates the Life Force6 to heal and strengthen the immune system. Of
course, that is what ultimately happens, but this hides the very real
and concrete action of the medicine, which is to destroy the disease.
280 On the other hand, are not the chronic miasms diseaseparasites, living off the life of the individual seized by
them, which have their fruit in the eruption originally
produced by them (the itch-pustule, the chancre and the
figwart, -infectious in themselves) and which do not die off
of themselves like the half spiritual acute miasmas, but can
only be rescinded and annihilated [aufgehoben und vernichtet] by a counter-infection, with a medicinal disease
Potence quite similar but stronger (the anti-psoric), so
that the patient is freed from them and recovers? (Chronic
Diseases - translation by SRD)
Clearly it is the patient that comes for treatment, but it is the
disease that is addressed by the medicine. The Wesen of the medicine (artificial disease) acts directly on the Wesen of the natural disease in the patient. This is what Hahnemann termed the initial
action of the remediation process or heilen (which involves both
healing and curing, the German using the same word for both
aspects).7
6. The German term (Lebenskraft or Legensprincip) has been mostly erroneously translated as the “vital force,” which is an altogether different concept. See The Dynamic
Legacy: from Homeopathy to Heilkunst, for more details.
7. The concept of Wesen is not one that is well-known in English and is difficult to translate. Essentially, it is the living essence of a thing or entity, and that is the meaning
Hahnemann gives it. It is a dynamic, self-subsisting presence even though that presence is not material. As Hahnemann writes, the Wesen of a disease (see #7 of the Organon) impinges on the human Wesen (#10) and gives rise to a disease with a particular
set of symptoms. Medicine also has a Wesen (#20, 21) such that it also has the power to
differently tune (re-tune) the Life Force (Hahnemann’s term for this was literally a retunement or “over” tunement - uberstimmung). See The Dynamic Legacy: from Homeopathy to Heilkunst for more detail on these concepts.
Direction of Cure
11
More Than One Disease
Once the natural disease is removed the sustentive aspect of the
Living Power, what Hahnemann termed the Lebens-ErhaltungsKraft (literally, life supporting or sustaining power), then seeks to
restore order in the organism, opposing to the artificial disease an
equal and opposite state in nature. This is called the counter-action
(or gegen-wirkung, often erroneously termed the secondary action).
The entire process of remediation (heilen) is designed to
remove the disease in the patient. The wholistic nature of this treatment resides in the fact that disease is seen as a phenomenon, a
dynamic supersensible reality. Disease is the result of an impingement on the generative aspect of the Living Power, which then
(pro)creates in the patient a disease entity manifesting in a set of
malfunctions including feelings, functions and sensations (physiological condition).
At the same time the sustentive power, that aspect of the Living
Power mandated to keep us in health, attempts to rid the organism
of the disease Wesen and produces various changes in the processes
of our biochemical anatomy (toxic elimination reactions) that can
themselves become so strong that they further disrupt the Living
Power and add to the disease. It is subjectively difficult to distinguish the one set of indications from the other.
The disease expression (condition or behavior) will be largely
determined by the nature of the disease Wesen and the individual
nature (including the constitution) of the patient.
Thus, it is the disease that must be the focus of the true physician, although he will need to take into account the individual disease expression of the patient.
As Hahnemann states at the beginning, the art of medicine lies
in identifying the disease, selecting the remedy based on the law of
similar resonance and then determining the proper dose.
§3.1. If the physician clearly realizes what in diseases,
that is, what in each particular case of disease, is to be
remedied (disease discernment, indication)...
Next, he discovered that there can be more than one natural
disease in a patient at any given stage, each disease taking up residence in that part of the organism most proper to it. Thus, each disease exists without interfering with the other, but creating a
complication for the patient.
12
Direction of Cure
More Than One Disease
§.40.1. III Or t h e n e w d i s e a s e , after long impingement
on the organism, j o i n s t h e o l d o n e dissimilar to it, and
with this forms a complicated disease, so that e a c h o f
them takes in their own region in the organism - that is, the organs especially appropriate to it -- and, as it
were, only the peculiar place proper to it, but the remainder is left to the disease dissimilar to it.
§.40.2. So a venereal patient can also become psoric, and
conversely.
§.40.3. They can, however, as two dissimilar diseases not
lift, not cure one another.
§.40.4. Initially the venereal symptoms become silent and
suspended, while the itch eruption begins to appear; with
time, however (since the venereal disease is just as strong
as the itch), both associate themselves to one another -that is, e a c h t a k e s u p s o l e l y t h e s u i t a b l e p a r t s o f
the organism for itself -- and the patient is
t h e r e b y m a d e m o r e d i s e a s e d and more difficult to
cure. (bold added)
And all the more common (and even more so in our day) are
the many iatrogenic diseases engendered by allopathic medicine,
such that the patient is heavily weighed down with numerous diseases that must all be addressed.
§.41.2. T o t h e n a t u r a l d i s e a s e which should be cured,
there then a s s o c i a t e themselves by persistent repetition
of unsuitable medicaments, n e w , often very protracted
d i s e a s e s t a t e s corresponding to the nature of the latter;
these n e w d i s e a s e s t a t e s g r a d u a l l y p a i r u p a n d
complicate themselves with the dissimilar
c h r o n i c m a l a d y (that the unsuitable medicinal means
could not cure through similar action, that is, not homeopathically), thereby a d d i n g t o t h e o l d o n e a n e w d i s s i m i l a r a r t i f i c i a l d i s e a s e o f a c h r o n i c k i n d , thus
making the hitherto s i m p l y d i s e a s e d i n d i v i d u a l d o u b l y d i s e a s e d , that is to say, much more diseased and more
incurable, sometimes even entirely incurable, often indeed
even killing him. (bold added)
If disease and patient were interchangeable, as it seems to be in
conventional homeopathic teachings and, thus, if it were the patient
that was the object of the medicines, the patient would logically
have to be destroyed! Clearly, this is an absurdity, and to persist in
the idea that it is “the patient, not the disease” as one so often hears
and reads, is to persist in nonsense.
Direction of Cure
13
Summary
That the nonsense is persisted in is due largely to the failure to
grasp that there can be more than one disease in a patient. If this
were understood then there should be an end to the nostrum “we
treat the patient, not the disease.” If the patient has no disease, then
there is nothing to treat with medicine. Even if the patient only has
one disease, we still should not accept that the patient can be
reduced to the disease, as most teachings seem to imply or directly
state.
Summary
The patient may, and mostly does, have more than one disease.
Each disease can produce symptoms. Each disease must be annihilated with the proper medicine based on the law of similar resonance, so that the task of the “genuine medical practitioner” (or
Heilkünstler, as this is written in German)8 is to identify the disease
and then the curative medicine.9
Cure takes place, within a given disease, according to Hering’s
Principles, which are:
• from above down as far as the nature of the pain is concerned
• from the more noble to the less noble organs
• in the same order as the disease process itself.
Where there is more than one disease, the direction of cure is in
the reverse order of the diseases, that is, from the most recent to the
first acquired. This can be termed Kent’s Addendum.
Finally, we can add Decker’s Postulate, namely that where a
remedy is given for the state of mind (the constant Wesen disease),
this will produce a disturbance of the psychic state of the patient,
whereas when a remedy is given based on the alterations in the condition, that is, the changes in feelings, functions and sensations, this
8. See for example, Aphorism 3: ...und ist ein ächter Heilkünstler (and is a genuine
“wholing-Artist” or practitioner).
9. See An Affair to Remember in this series and The Dynamic Legacy, by the authors, for a
more thorough discussion of the two types of disease and the two types of approach to
determining any given disease and the curative means for them.
14
Direction of Cure
Summary
may lead to an improvement in the mental and emotional state. In
order to determine whether the patient is indeed moving in the right
direction (of cure), we need to take this duality of disease and remediation into account.
Direction of Cure
15
Summary
16
Direction of Cure
CHAPTER 2
Aggravation and
Healing Reaction
There is considerable confusion in the literature concerning the
homeopathic aggravation and the healing reaction. Often these
terms are used synonomously, as they are seldom clearly distinquished. The problem lies in the failure of generations of practitioners and teachers to discern and to comprehend the dual nature of
the disease and remedial process.
Homeopathic Aggravation
Hahnemann identified an apparent worsening in the disease
symptoms of the patient shortly after the taking of the homeopathically selected remedy.
§157.1. As certain as it is, however, that a homeopathically selected remedy,on account of the appropriateness and
smallness of its dosage, quietly voids and annihilates the
acute disease analogous to it without amplification of its
remaining non-homeopathic symptoms, that is, without
arousal of newer, more significant ailments, it is nevertheless usual (but likewise only with a dosage not properly
diminished) for it to actuate a kind of small exacerbation in
the first hour or [few] hours immediately after taking it
(one lasting several hours, however, with a dosage somewhat too large), which has so much similarity to the original disease, that it appears to the patient to be an
aggravation of his own malady.
This exacerbation of the original disease symptoms is due to
the fact that the artificial disease (remedy) now adds its initial
action to the existing disease. It is not really a worsening of the
original disease, but only appears so to the patient. It would be more
Aggravation and Healing Reaction
17
Homeopathic Aggravation
correct to say that it is an exacerbation of the patient’s condition,
not an aggravation. However, the term "homeopathic aggravation"
is commonly employed in the literature.
§157.2. It is, however, in fact nothing other than a highly
similar medicinal disease surmounting the original malady
in strength.
This homeopathic aggravation is generally a positive sign of
the curative process.
§158.1. This small homeopathic exacerbation in the first
hours — a very good portent that the acute disease will be
mostly finished by the first dose — is not infrequent, since
the medicinal disease must naturally be somewhat stronger
than the malady to be cured if it shall overtune and extinguish the natural disease, just as a similar natural disease
can also void and annihilate one similar to it only if it is
stronger than the other (§43-48).
The various aspects of the homeopathic aggravation are, then,
that:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
It applies mainly to acute, natural diseases. (see also §60)
It is due to the dosage not being small enough.
It occurs in the first hour or few hours of the taking of the remedy.
It appears to the patient as an aggravation of the original symptoms of the disease because of the similarity of the artificial disease (remedy) to the acute
natural disease. But it really is a sign of the artificial disease taking hold and
destroying the natural disease.
It is almost unavoidable (because of the difficulty of prescribing the perfect
dose) and is a good sign in acute diseases.
What of the homeopathic aggravation in chronic disease (that
is, chronic natural disease, or the chronic miasms)? Hahnemann
states that this will occur almost solely at the end of treatment,
when the cure is almost completed. This is consistent with the
observation in self-limiting, or so-called acute, natural diseases that
such an aggravation is a sign that the disease is near a cure.
§161.1. When I place the so-called homeopathic aggravation, or rather the initial-action of the homeopathic medicine, appearing to somewhat heighten the symptoms of the
original disease, within the first hour or the first few
hours, this is thus certainly the case with the more acute,
recently arisen maladies; but when medicines of longer
active duration have to combat an old or very old sickness,
18
Aggravation and Healing Reaction
The Healing Reaction
no such apparent heightenings of the original disease may
show themselves during the course of treatment and do not
show themselves if the aptly selected medicine in properly
small, only gradually heightened doses becomes somewhat
modified every time by new dynamization (§247); such
heightenings of the original symptoms of the chronic disease can then only come to light at the end of such treatments when the cure is almost or entirely completed.
The homeopathic aggravation is part of the curative action
which involves the initial action of the remedy on the generative
(disease-engendering) aspect of the Living Power
The Healing Reaction
There can be confusion between the homeopathic aggravation
and the healing reaction. This is because both are experienced as
aggravations, or an apparent worsening of the original condition, by
the patient. However, there should be no such confusion on the part
of the genuine medical practitioner (Heilkünstler).
The healing reaction is the product of the sustentive aspect of
the Life Force acting to restore balance against disease (either the
natural disease, or the artificial disease of the medicine). The healing reaction is, thus, related to the counter-action.
The homeopathic remedy, given on the basis of the law of similars, destroys the existing disease through lysis, but then may,
under certain conditions (encountering of internal blockages or barriers) generate a strong reaction in the form of a counter-action.
This is all the more the case in non-natural disease, such as those
generated by allopathic treatment (called iatrogenic disease).
Just what these conditions are is explained by Hahnemann in a
passage from Allopathy: A Word of Warning to All Sick Persons:
The mischievous effects to chronic patients that lie in this
their blind treatment, in this overloading of them with
strong unknown drugs, will be perfectly obvious to every
reflecting, unprejudiced person, who knows that every
medicine is a disease-creating substance, consequently
every powerful medicine taken day after day in several and
increasing doses will infallibly make any, even healthy
persons, ill, — at first obviously and perceptibly so, but
Aggravation and Healing Reaction
19
The Healing Reaction
when longer continued their hurtful action is less apparent,
*Least of all perceptible if the doses be not increased, in
which case the allopathic physician seeks to persuade himself and his patient by saying, "his nature has become
habituated to this medicine, therefore the dose of it must be
increased," — a radically wrong notion, leading to the
patient's ruin!
but all the more profoundly penetrating, and productive of
permanent injury, in this way, because the ever activelife-sustaining power silently endeavours to ward off the
injury with which these frequent assaults threaten life
itself, by internal counter-operations by means of the construction of invisible protections and barriers against the
life-invading medicinal enemy, — by the formation of
morbid alterations in the organs, in order to exalt the
function of one, and render it intolerably sensitive and
hence painful, and the others again insensible and even
indurated, whilst it deprives the other parts (that in their
healthy state were easily excited to action) of their irritability, or even paralyses them; in short it brings about as
many corporeal and mental morbid alterations as were
requisite for warding off the danger to life from the hostile
attacks of the constantly reiterated medicinal doses; that is
to say, it effects in secret innumerable disorganizations and
abnormal organizations, so that a persistent permanent
derangement of the health of the body and mind is the consequence, — for which there cannot be a more appropriate
appellation than chronic medicinal disease — an internal
and external crippling of the health, whereby, if the powerful drug have only been used some months, the nature of
the individual is so permanently altered that even should
all medicine thereafter be discontinued, and the system be
subjected to no further loss of humours and forces, yet this
morbid metamorphosis in the interior cannot be again
removed nor re-transformed into health and the normal
condition by the Living Power under two or three years.
Thus, for instance, the Living Power of our organism, that
is always exercising a preservative {sustentive} function,
protects the sensitive parts of the palm of the hand of the
pavier (as also of the worker among fire, the glassblower
and the like) against the scratching and lacerating sharp
angles and points of the paving stones, with a hard, horny
covering, to protect the skin with its nerves, blood-vessels
and muscles, from being wounded or destroyed. But should
the man from this time forth cease to handle rough stones,
and take nothing but soft things in his hands, at least a year
must elapse ere the vital force (for no surgical or other art
20
Aggravation and Healing Reaction
The Healing Reaction
can do this) brings about the removal of this horny skin,
which was formerly constructed by it on the workman's
hands, for their protection against the continued action of
the rough stones.
Equally protective does our preservative power exert itself
to rescue life at least, if it can do no more, by the formation
of organic and dynamic barriers in the interior, against the
injurious and inimical assaults of long-continued doses of
strong allopathic medicines, that is, by the establishment
of permanent alterations of our organisms, which always
form a persistent medicinal disease that often lasts for
years, that is not capable of being cured and removed by any
human art, and that can only be changed back again to the
normal state in several years by the vital force itself, provided all medicines are discontinued and the requisite
strength of constitution still remains.
The action of the remedy (initial action) in curing the disease
itself is a gentle one. Hahnemann explains the gentle (curative)
action of the homeopathic remedy in natural disease in the Introduction to the Organon.
5.4. Homeopathy avoids therefore even the least enervation, also as much as possible every arousal of pain,
because pain also robs the vitality, and therefore for cure
it avails itself of only such medicines whose capacity to
(dynamically) alter and resonify the condition it exactly
knows and then searches out such a one whose conditionaltering powers (medicinal disease) are in a position to
abrogate the natural disease at issue by resonance (Similars by similars), and administers this simply, in subtle
doses to the patient (so small that they, without causing
pain or weakening, exactly suffice to lift the natural malady); whence the sequel: that without in the least weakening, tormenting, or torturing him, the natural disease is
extinguished and the patient soon grows stronger on his own
already while improving, and is thus cured — to be sure a
seemingly easy, however very cogitative, laborious, arduous business, but that which fully restores the patients in a
short time to health without ailment, and so becomes a salutary and blessed business.
Hahnemann explains in §64 of the Organon that in the case of
natural diseases the counter-action is almost imperceptible. However, where there are non-natural diseases, involving blockages to
cure (namely, homogenic, iatrogenic, or ideogenic diseases), the
counter-action is of a different nature.
Aggravation and Healing Reaction
21
The Healing Reaction
The sustentive aspect of the Living Power has to increase its
strength to the point where it can overcome the artificial disease.
This is the basis of a perceptible, even strong, counter-reaction,
which Hahnemann distinguishes by the further term, Heilwirkung,
which is best translated here as "remedial action."
§64.b) when there is not an exact opposite state to the initial-action in nature, the Living Power appears to strive to
assert its superiority by extinguishing the alteration actuated in itself from without (by the medicine), in place of
which it reinstates its norm (after-action, remedialaction).
Kent explains what Hahnemann meant by the violent action of
allopathic medicines and by the "gentle cure" by resonant means.
The cure must be quick or speedy, it must be gentle...
Whenever violent drugs are resorted to there is nothing
mild in the action or the reaction that must follow...
The manner of cure can only be mild if it flows in the
stream of natural direction, establishing order, and
thereby removing disease. The direction of old-fashioned
medicine is like pulling a cat up a hill by the tail... The
curative medicine does not act violently upon the economy,
but establishes its action [initial action] in a mild manner;
but while the action is mild and gentle, very often that
which follows, which is the reaction [counteraction], is a
turmoil, especially when the work of traditional medicine
is being undone and former states are being re-established.
(Kent, Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy, p. 22)
Very often a remedy that will go to the very centre and
restore order to the economy will cause quite a turmoil.
(Kent, Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy, p. 275)
The center that Kent speaks of is akin to the constant Wesen
side of disease, or Sankaran's central disturbance.1
Hahnemann also explained how the various traumas a person
experienced could create blockages to healing. To the extent that
blockages exist due to trauma or allopathic prescribing, establishing
health will involve more energy and be more dramatic (healing crises). See the previous quote above from Allopathy: A Word of Warn-
1. See also the chapter on Direction of Cure regarding the difference in the direction of
cure depending on whether one is treating for the constant ofr the variable Wesen disease.
22
Aggravation and Healing Reaction
The Healing Reaction
ing to All Sick Persons. The question then arises whether or not to
intervene in such situations. This is dealt with in the next chapter.
Aggravation and Healing Reaction
23
The Healing Reaction
24
Aggravation and Healing Reaction
CHAPTER 3
New Symptoms:
What They
Mean?
Because the healing reaction can be strong or lengthy where
the blockages are considerable, there can be concern regarding the
need to intervene. When is this justified?
When the physician gives a medicine and new symptoms arise,
as can occur in the healing reaction, or in the giving of the wrong
remedy, the question also arises as to whether this is a sign of cure
or of disease.
Remember, the medicine is an artificial disease capable of
engendering a new disease state in the patient. It is only the application of the medicine on the basis of the law of similars and the use
of the optimal dose (no more nor less than needed) that protects the
patient from the creation of new disease states. The similarity of
disease states allows the medicine to destroy the existing disease in
the patient, and the appropriate dose means that the Life Force of
the patient is able to quickly remove it afterwards.
There are two aspects to the appearance of new symptoms.
1.
The generation of new symptoms that relate to the disease of the patient.
This is covered by Hahnemann in two contexts:
2.
a. cases with insufficient remedies
b. cases with insufficient symptoms (one-sided cases).
The generation of new symptoms unrelated to the disease to be treated.
Hahnemann discusses this in §249 of the Organon.
New Symptoms: What They Mean?
25
Cases With Insufficient Remedies
Cases With Insufficient Remedies
Regarding 1(a) above, Hahnemann states that the emergence of
"accessory symptoms" is not a problem for eventual cure. The remedy should be allowed to act and then a more fitting remedy
selected for the disease.
§163.1. Admittedly, in this case we cannot expect from this
medicine a complete, untroublesome cure; for upon using it
there emerge some occurrents, which were not to be found
earlier in the disease, a c c e s s o r y s y m p t o m s o f t h e
incompletely fitting medicine.
§163.2. This, to be sure, d o e s n o t h a m p e r a more considerable part of the m a l a d y (the disease symptoms similar to the medicinal symptoms) f r o m b e i n g e x p u n g e d
b y t h i s m e d i c i n e , and thus does not hamper a fair beginning of the cure from arising by this means, although not
without those accessory ailments which are, however, only
moderate with properly small medicinal doses.
§166.1. Meanwhile, such a case is very rare due to the
recent increase in the number of medicines known according to their pure actions, and, if such a case indeed should
turn up, i t s d i s a d v a n t a g e s d i m i n i s h a s s o o n a s a
subsequent medicine of apt resonance can be
s e l e c t e d . (bold added)
However, in true acute (that is, urgent) cases under 1(a) the
homeopath should not wait, but prescribe on the basis of the new,
now altered disease state.
§167.1. That is to say, if a c c e s s o r y a i l m e n t s o f s o m e
m o m e n t a r i s e with the use of this first employed,
imperfectly homeopathic medicine, d o n o t l e t t h i s f i r s t
d o s e w o r k i t s e l f o u t f u l l y i n a c u t e d i s e a s e s nor
abandon the patient to the full active duration of the means;
rather e x a m i n e t h e n o w a l t e r e d d i s e a s e s t a t e a n e w
and bring the rest of the original symptoms into connection
with the newly arisen ones for purposes of r e c o r d i n g a
n e w d i s e a s e i m a g e . (bold added)
Cases With Insufficient Symptoms
In case 1(b), those with insufficient symptoms, Hahnemann
explains clearly that the new symptoms, while induced by the rem-
26
New Symptoms: What They Mean?
Cases With Insufficient Symptoms
edy, are really part of the disease state. They were hidden from view
and have now been brought to the surface. They are not to be seen
as a proving, but they might have been triggered by a specific cause:
§180.1. The medicine selected as well as possible to be
sure, but only incompletely because of said cause, will, in
its action against the disease, arouse a c c e s s o r y a i l m e n t s
o n l y i n p a r t a n a l o g o u s t o i t — just as in the above
mentioned case (§162), where the dearth of homeopathic
remedies alone left the selection incomplete — and will mix
several occurrents out of its own set of symptoms into the
condition of the patient, w h i c h o c c u r r e n t s a r e , h o w ever, at the same time, ailments of the disease
i t s e l f , although rarely or never felt up till now; occurrents will disclose themselves or develop to a higher degree
which the patient shortly before had not perceived at all or not distinctly.
§181.1. Let it n o t be interposed that the accessory ailments now appearing and the new symptoms of this disease
were to b e l a i d t o t h e a c c o u n t o f t h e m e d i c a m e n t
just used.
§181.2. They do come from it;a] but they are however only
such symptoms for whose appearance this disease, and also
in this body, was already capable of in itself, and which
were m e r e l y p r o m p t e d t o a p p e a r b y t h e m e d i c i n e
u s e d — autogenic of similar symptoms.
§181.2.a] When they were not caused by an important fault
in regimen, a violent passion, or a stormy development in
the organism, eruption or departure of menstruation, conception, childbirth, etc.
§181.3. In a word, o n e h a s t o a c c e p t t h e e n t i r e
symptom complex, now become visible, as
belonging to the disease itself, as the present
t r u e s t a t e , and to manage it further accordingly. (bold
added)
Kent has the same interpretation as Hahnemann. In the context
of the healing reaction, Kent states that the reaction can be severe:
But the remedy cannot give him symptoms that he has not.
( Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy, p. 246)
New Symptoms: What They Mean?
27
New Symptoms Not Related to Disease
New Symptoms Not Related to Disease
For case #2 above, involving new symptoms that arise from the
giving of a medicine that is not related to the disease of the patient,
Hahnemann specifies two courses of action:
• to antidote the remedy if the new symptoms are significant in their aggravation
• to give a new, more appropriate remedy
§249.1. Each medicine prescribed for a case of disease
which in the course of its action generates n e w s y m p t o m s n o t p e c u l i a r t o t h e d i s e a s e t o b e c u r e d , and
troublesome ones to be sure, is not capable of engendering
veritable improvement and not to be deemed as homeopathically selected; it must therefore first be, if this aggravation was significant, either partly extinguished as soon as
possible by an a n t i d o t e b e f o r e g i v i n g t h e n e x t m e a n s
more precisely selected according to its resonant
action, or the latter must be administered at once
if the symptoms prove not to be all too violently adverse, in
order to take the place of that incorrectly selected one.
(bold added)
Principle of Intensity
In both cases, Hahnemann sets down an objective measure for
determining intervention, either for palliating the new symptoms
(where they are related to the disease) or antidoting them (where
they are not). This measure is the principle of intensity.
Concerning the issue of the degree of acuteness for either palliating the new symptoms (where they are related to the disease) or
antidoting them (where they are not part of the disease), Hahnemann uses the same terms:
§183 - palliating: "die neu entstendnen Beschwerden,
ihrer Heftigkeit wegen" (newly arisen ailments, because of
their seriousness/intensity).
§249 - antidoting – "bei... heftigen widrigen Symptomen" (with ... serious/intense adverse symptoms).
Hahnemann also, earlier in §49, uses the term "beschwerliche Symptome" to refer to the new, "troublesome symptoms."
28
New Symptoms: What They Mean?
Principle of Intensity
This suggests that, in both cases, the new symptoms represent, or are derived from, an ailment, not just an indisposition,
which means that they can be addressed with another remedy without being suppressive.
New Symptoms: What They Mean?
29
Principle of Intensity
30
New Symptoms: What They Mean?
CHAPTER 4
Dual Nature:
Disease and
Remediation
Along with his insights into the dual nature of disease,1 Hahnemann also came to an early comprehension of the dual nature of the
disease process itself, as well as the process of removing the disease
and restoring health, what he termed Heilkunst (the remedial art,
i.e., the process of cure and healing).
This comprehension rests on a vital and fundamental discovery
in which resides the true genius of this remarkable man. Where the
law of similars and the idea of provings had been, if not systematically applied, at least known to medicine, the discovery of the dual
nature of the Life Force or Living Power remains Hahnemann’s true
and enduring contribution to medicine, even if this discovery lies
essentially unrecognized and ignored by almost all those using his
name or his writings to practice medicine.
It is in this failure that we can find the reasons for the confusion
over patient and disease (and the absurd conflation of the two into
“the patient=the disease” of conventional homeopathy), over the
healing reaction and the homeopathic aggravation, the failure to
understand what is meant by the dual remedy affair in homeopathic
history2 and other confusions as set out here and elsewhere by the
authors.
1. See An Affair to Remember in this series and The Dynamic Legacy: from Homeopathy
to Heilkunst (in electronic format) by the authors.
2. See An Affair to Remember and also The Dynamic Legacy by the authors.
Dual Nature: Disease and Remediation
31
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
For Hahnemann, the proper target of medicine was disease, and
not imbalances that belonged to poor or improper regimen or
mirages that emerged out of human fancy, false conditions with no
connection back to an actual disease. However, he found the medicine of his day in confusion over what disease was, and therefore
indiscriminantly applying substances without any principle or
proper diagnosis. Aphorism 3 of the Organon starts with the need
for the proper identification of disease (and in #77 he separates disease from those situations which are created by an improper lifestyle).
Hahnemann’s genius lay in discerning that there is a duality to
the Life Force or Living Power.3 One of these sides or aspects of the
Life Force is only capable of sustaining the individual in health and
is involved in imbalances or indispositions. In such cases, a balance
or constitutional homeostasis is easily restored. An example would
be an excess of heat which then leads to perspiration used to cool
the body.
The other side or aspect of the Life Force is the one that must
be involved to create something new. Its most obvious human role
is in cell division and the creation of new life in the impregnation of
the egg by the sperm. However, it is also involved in the creation of
new thoughts and concepts and in disease. Disease for Hahnemann
was a state of being and each such state was unique. In order to
become diseased, as opposed to imbalanced, the generative or generating power must somehow be impinged upon such that a new
3. It is important to note here that almost all translations have taken all the various terms
for the Life Force and the two sides and uniformly translated them as “vital force,”
which is not only wrong conceptually (Hahnemann being a dynamist not a vitalist), but
a flagrant distortion of Hahnemann’s seminal insight, as such a step served to hide and
deny the dual nature of the Life Force. The only translations to remain loyal to the original meaning of the German are those done by Steven Decker. The relatively recent edition of the Organon edited by Wenda Brewster O’Reilly, is based on the momentous
new translation by Decker, but the true student of Hahnemann’s new medical system
will want to obtain the complete new translation published by Decker in its entirety.
This translation is a unique interlinear version which allows the reader to see the mind
of the translator at work and to compare the new English rendition with the original
German. It is available in electronic version so that it can be fully searched and become
a powerful new tool for research.
32
Dual Nature: Disease and Remedia-
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
state can be engendered and influence our state of mind, behavior,
occurrents, circumstances and condition (feelings, functions and
sensations) - see Aphorism 6 of the Organon.
Sustentive Power
The one side of the Living Power or Principle is engaged in the
task of keeping us functioning in a state of health. It is our friend in
health and allows us to carry on the myriad of functions needed to
live. This is done without any conscious effort on our part (digestion, breathing, elimination, motion, etc.). Thus, many symptoms
and signs we experience are really healthy elimination functions in
the face of noxious agents such as unhealthy food, air, water and
poisonous substances, including drugs (both prescription and
other), as well as pathogenic microbes. Fevers, diarrhea, sweating,
changes in urine volume and make-up, cramps, discharges of various kinds, are all normal responses of the sustentive side of the Living Principle to unwanted or harmful agents.
Hahnemann called this sustentive, or health-sustaining aspect
of the Living Principle, the Lebens-Erhaltungs-Kraft.
The sustentive aspect is that action of the Living Power that
helps to maintain natural healthy functioning or homeostasis.
Homeostasis is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as:
The maintenance of a dynamically stable state within a system by means of internal regulatory processes that tend to
counteract any disturbance of the stability by external
forces or influences; the state of stability so maintained.
The sustentive power of the Living Principle organises efforts
to remove disease and to re-establish balance. This involves normal
excretions and eliminations through the various excretory organs
(such as the liver, kidney, lungs, skin, digestive system and urinary
system). If we eat something that is poisonous or contaminated, we
produce vomiting and diarrhea, as well as possibly a fever and
sweating. If we are exposed to a virus, the sustentive power will
organize a fever to destroy the virus, as well as a rash to eliminate it
from the organism, what Hahnemann called the counter or back
action of the Living Power.
However, Hahnemann realized that these efforts of the sustentive power (our innate healing power or the vis medicatrix naturae
of Hippocrates) were not always successful and could even become
Dual Nature: Disease and Remediation
33
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
so stressful on the overall Living Power of the organism that it
could endanger the organism, producing damaged tissue in part of
the organism in order to save the whole (ulcers, fibroids, tumors,
fistulas, etc.). What was a friend in health could become an enemy
in disease.
Indeed, one of his major criticisms of the medicine of his day
was that it attempted to mimic the efforts of the sustentive power in
its various evacuations (through the use of strong purgatives, hot
irons, poultices, etc.).4
38.1 The old school merely followed the operation of
c r u d e i n s t i n c t u a l n a t u r e in its indigent strivings to
pull through only in moderate, acute disease attacks - it
mimicked solely the S u s t e n t i v e P o w e r o f L i f e ( Lebens-Erhaltungs-Kraft ), incapable of deliberation left to
itself in diseases, which, incapable of acting according to
intellect and deliberation, r e s t i n g simply as it does o n
t h e o r g a n i c l a w s o f t h e b o d y , works only according to
these organic laws, — c r u d e n a t u r e , which is not capable, like an intelligent physician, of bringing the gaping
flews of a wound together and of healing by fusion, which
does not know how to straighten and fit together the oblique
ends of broken bones far apart from one another, however
much it lets bone gelatine exude (often to excess), can tie
off no injured artery, rather, in its energy, makes the
injured bleed to death, which doesn't understand how to
reset a dislocated shoulder, but, to be sure, hinders the art
of bone-setting by the swelling that comes quickly to pass
round about, — which, in order to remove a splinter stuck
in the cornea, destroys the entire eye by suppuration and
only knows how, with all its exertion, to dissolve a strangulated inguinal hernia by gangrene of the bowels and death,
also, often in dynamic diseases, makes patients far unhappier by its metaschematisms than they previously were.
(bold added)
References to the Sustentive Power
...the ever active l i f e - s u s t a i n i n g p o w e r silently
endeavours to ward off the injury with which these frequent assaults threaten life itself ... Thus, for instance, the
Living Power of our organism, that is always e x e r c i s i n g
a p r e s e r v a t i v e [ s u s t e n t i v e ] f u n c t i o n , protects the
4. For more on this topic visit www.heilkunst.com and look at the article on Hahnemann
and the Natural Healing Power or read The Dynamic Legacy.
34
Dual Nature: Disease and Remedia-
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
sensitive parts of the palm of the hand of the pavier (as also
of the worker among fire, the glassblower and the like)
against the scratching and lacerating sharp angles and
points of the paving stones, with a hard, horny covering, to
protect the skin with its nerves, blood-vessels and muscles, from being wounded or destroyed... (Lesser Writings ,
pp. 747-8)
59.2 ...it was left to the individual nature of the one so
treated to do the most and best for the complete dispatch of
the disease and r e s t o r a t i o n o f t h e l o s t v i t a l i t y a n d
j u i c e s — t o t h e S u s t e n t i v e P o w e r o f L i f e ... (Chronic
Diseases, translation by SRD)
§262.1. In thermal diseases on the contrary — except with
spiritual-mental aberration-derangement — the subtle,
unerring internal sense of the here very lively, instinctual
L i f e - s u s t e n t i v e - d r i v e decides, so distinctly and definitely, that the physician simply needs to advise the relations and the attendants of the patient to put no obstacle in
the way of this voice of nature, be it by denial of that which
the patient urgently demands in enjoyments or by deleterious proposals and persuasions.
§205.1.a]1 ...the fundamental malady is not diminished in
the least hereby; the S u s t e n t i v e P o w e r o f L i f e is
therefore necessitated to transfer the focus for the great
internal malady to a still more noble site (as it does with
all metastases)...
§63.5. ...this is repeated above – why? This b a c k - a c t i o n
b e l o n g s t o t h e S u s t e n t i v e P o w e r o f o u r L i f e and is
an automatic function of the same, c a l l e d a f t e r - a c t i o n
o r c o u n t e r a c t i o n . (bold added to all quotes above)
The sustentive power does indeed help to dispatch the self-limiting diseases, but it cannot remove the chronic diseases and
miasms; it can only help to weaken the disease and then assist the
effects of the disease to leave by restoring health.
The Generative Power
From his understanding of the two competing views of the life
energy and of the dynamic nature of disease, Hahnemann came to
grasp that natural disease involved another side of the Living
Power, that which was involved in the generation of life, such as
conception and cell division.
Hahnemann saw this as the power to engender ("erzeugen"),
the generative power or the Lebens-Erzeugungs-Kraft.
Dual Nature: Disease and Remediation
35
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
This power of generation must have been involved in disease
because Hahnemann observed that the sustentive power could not
get rid of natural disease, except in a few simple, so-called acute
diseases (which were naturally self-limiting, such as measles or
scarlet fever).
Where the "disease," or more correctly, the disturbance of the
Living Principle, does not implicate the generative power, this is
only an indisposition, not a disease per se. Balance of healthy functioning can easily be re-established by the organism’s inherent healing capacity, resident in the sustentive aspect of the Living Power.
However, if the generative power is in some way damaged or
affected, the efforts of the sustentive power to restore balance will
of necessity be unsuccessful. Of course, with sufficient rest and
nutrition over time a reasonable balance can be achieved, but the
disease itself will remain to cause problems later.
By observing that the contracting of natural disease is a generative act, Hahnemann meant that the Wesen of the disease agent
(usually an infectious agent, or microbe) penetrated the Wesen of
the human being and caused the generation of a distinct disease
Wesen within. This impingement on the Living Principle occurred
through its generative power.
The impingement causes an engenderment of a disease Wesen
akin to a pregnancy. This disease Wesen cannot be destroyed except
by a medicinal intervention that affects the generative power. Thus,
the act of curing means the use of the disease Wesen of the resonant
medicine (artificial disease) to destroy ("abort"), on the basis of the
law of similar resonance, the Wesen of the natural disease within.
58.1 No! that glorious p o w e r innate in the human being,
ordained t o c o n d u c t L i f e in the most perfect way d u r i n g
i t s h e a l t h , equally present in all parts of the organism, in
the sensible as well as the irritable fiber, and untiring
mainspring of all normal natural bodily functions, was n o t
at all created for purposes of helping itself in
diseases, nor for exercising a Remedial Art wort h y o f i m i t a t i o n — no! true remedial art is that cogitative pursuit that devolved upon the higher human spirit,
free deliberation, and the selecting intellect deciding
according to reasons, in order t o r e t u n e t h a t instinctual,
intellect- and awareness-lacking but automatic, energic
Living Power, when said L i v i n g P o w e r has been mistuned
by disease to abnormal activity, b y m e a n s o f a r e s o n a n t
affection to the disease, engendered by a medicine
36
Dual Nature: Disease and Remedia-
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
s e l e c t e d h o m e o p a t h i c a l l y , the Living Power being
medicinally diseased to such a degree, and in fact to a somewhat higher degree, that the natural affection could work on
it no more, and thus it becomes rid of the natural disease,
yet remaining occupied solely with the so resonant, somewhat stronger medicinal disease affection against which the
Living Power now directs its entire energy, soon overcoming it, the Living Power thereby becoming free and able
again to return to the norm of health and to its actual
intended purpose, "the enlivenment and sustenance of the
sound organism," without having suffered painful or debilitating attacks by this transformation. (bold added)
The concept of the generative power of the Living Principle,
and the profound insight that true disease is a generative act, an act
of creation between two Wesens (human and disease Wesens), is
contained in Hahnemann’s writings in the term erzeugen or "engenderment."
You will note that the action of the medicinal Wesen also
engages the generative power (engenders an artificial disease).
Cure must involve the generative power and is, therefore, a
generative act (an engenderment) between the disease Wesen of the
patient (itself engendered by the human and original disease Wesens) and the remedial Wesen (medicine) based on the law of similar
resonance.
17.a]4 Usually such a stomach-vitiation is of dynamic origin, e n g e n d e r e d by emotional mind [Gemüt] disturbances
(grief, fright, chagrin), chill, exertion (mental or bodily)
directly upon eating — often even after moderate fare.
58.1. ...when said Living Power has been mistuned by disease to abnormal activity, by means of a resonant affection
to the disease, e n g e n d e r e d by a medicine selected homeopathically...
62.2. The vitality gradually sank only the more deeply the
more wine the patient had been talked into taking, (because
the e n g e n d e r e r of the weakness, the chronic disease,
could not be remedied by the prescription) since the Living
Power in the after-action opposes enervation to artificial
excitations.
68.2. The old medicine does indeed e n g e n d e r great alterations, but constantly such which are not good, and it continually ruins the health altogether with this extremely
ruinous metal given out of place.
Dual Nature: Disease and Remediation
37
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
88.2. Surprisingly, one sees that it always happened by
means of a medicine which is fit to e n g e n d e r by itself a
similar suffering to that contained in the disease case,
though these doctors were not immediately aware of what
they were doing and did it in a fit of forgetfulness of the
contrary doctrines of their school.
§4.1. At the same time he is a health sustainer if he knows
the things that disturb health, that e n g e n d e r and maintain
disease, and is aware of how to remove them from healthy
people.
§21.1. Since now, the curative Genius [Wesen] in medicines is not in itself discernible, which nobody can deny,
and ... therefore, we have only to abide by the disease
occurrents that the medicines e n g e n d e r in the healthy
body as the only possible revelation of their indwelling
curative power, in order to learn what d i s e a s e g e n e r a t i v e p o w e r , that is, at the same time, what disease curative power each single medicine possesses.
§22.1.a]5 The morbidly mistuned Living Power possesses
so little remedial ability worthy of imitation that all of the
alterations of condition and symptoms it g e n e r a t e s in the
organism are indeed just the disease itself!.
§80.1. — Psora, that true fundamental cause and e n g e n d e r e r of almost all remaining frequent, indeed countless
disease forms,
§148.1. The natural disease is never to be regarded as some
noxious matter situated somewhere internally or externally (§11 - 13), but rather as something e n g e n d e r e d
by an inimical spirit-like Potence that disturbs the
spirit-like Living Principle reigning in the entire organism in its instinctual governance, as if by a kind of contagion (fn. §11), as an evil spirit torments, and forces it to
e n g e n d e r certain sufferings and disorders in the course of
life which one calls (symptoms) diseases. (bold added to all
quotes above)
These references involving the generative power (power to
engender) are pervasive throughout the Organon.
Thus, while Hahnemann does not explicitly use the term Lebens-Erzeugungs-Kraft he is clear that there is such a force active in
the Living Principle, besides the sustentive power (Lebens-Erhaltungs-Kraft).
In the quotes given there, it is obvious that Hahnemann sees a
side of the Living Power or Life Force that is other than simply the
maintenance of health, and that is involved in the engenderment
38
Dual Nature: Disease and Remedia-
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
(erzeugen) of disease. He makes clear that this capacity of engenderment is related to the Living Power, thus is an integral aspect of
it.
Thus, we can ask ourselves:
1. Did Hahnemann use the term Erzeugunskraft? - the answer
is clearly yes.
2. Did Hahnemann state that this Erzeugungskraft (capacity to
engender) is a function of the Lebenskraft (Life Force or Living
Power)? - the answer again is yes.
3. Is this power of engenderment (Erzeugen) the only one he
links to the Life Force? - the answer is no. The other one is the
power of sustenance - Lebens-Erhaltungs-Kraft.
Thus, in §22 for example, Hahnemann states that the "morbidly
mistuned Living Power ...generates [symptoms] in the organism."
The question is, what power in the Lebenskraft does this engendering? It is the Erzeugungskraft of the Lebenskraft. Thus, while Hahnemann does not explicitly use the term Lebens-Erzeugungs-Kraft,
he is clear that there is such a force active in the Living Principle,
besides the sustentive power (Lebens-Erhaltungs Kraft).
In one reference noted here, the footnote to §22, Hahnemann
identifies the Lebenskraft (Life Force) itself as the "engenderess."
In the Introduction, near the end of the fourth section, Hahnemann
states: ...die…Lebenskraft ist die Erzeugerin der sich offenbarenden
Krankheit!
§101. These efforts are indeed simply the disease itself,
and the morbidly affected Living Power is the engenderer of
the self-manifesting disease!
And from the Synopsis to the 6th Edition of the Organon, #15,
Hahnemann refers to "the Living Power and the disease symptoms
that are engendered thereby."
What we can see clearly is that the generative power is
grounded in the Living Power. The disease Wesen "fathers" and the
Living Power of the human Wesen "mothers" the disease issue. So
the generative act involves both generators (Wesen).
Curing disease requires the physician to engage the Living
Power in its generative aspect using medicines on the basis of similar resonance. True disease is most importantly due to a co-genera-
Dual Nature: Disease and Remediation
39
The Dual Nature of the Living Power
tive act, involving the generative (creative, growth) power of the
Living Principle. Until Hahnemann’s time and even now, disease
was conceived as mainly a disturbance of the sustentive power, that
power that sustains the organism in health.
Therefore, treatment consisted of removing the supposed
offending disease matter, the materia peccans. either through
assisting the normal elimination reactions of the organism (natural
medicine approach) or through the burning, cutting or other form of
intervention (surgery, chemotherapy).
18.1. In general, up to more recent (I wish I would not be
permitted to say the most recent) times, the ordinary
school most dearly posits, with respect to diseases, even
though so subtly conceptualized, disease-matter (and
acridities), which must be carried away by exhalation and
perspiration, by the urinary apparatus, or by the salivary-glands from the blood-and lymph-vessels, by the
trachea and bronchial-glands as expectoration, by vomiting
and purging from the stomach and intestinal canal,
19.2. It also intended to draw off, thereby purifying the
body of all disease matters, the pernicious humours by
perpetual cantharide plasters and spurge-laurel — but
usually only ended up weakening the sick body to the point
of irremediability by all these rash, unnatural arrangements.
20.2. Therefore from Dioscorides on, in all Materica Medicas up to the newer books of this sort, almost nothing is
noted down about the individual medicines, as to what each
of their actual, special action be; rather, besides the indications about their supposed use against this or that disease
name of pathology, merely whether it further urine, sweat,
phlegm or menses, and above all, whether it actuate evacuation of the alimentary canal from above or below, because
all thoughts and aspirations of practicing doctors from time
immemorial were directed above all towards the evacuation
of a disease material and of sundry (sham) acridities, lying
supposedly at the base of diseases.
This erroneous approach could only come from a misunderstanding of the dynamic nature of disease, which operates through
and within the two sides of the Dynamis.
40
Dual Nature: Disease and Remedia-
The Duality of the Disease Process
The Duality of the Disease Process
The process of disease, whether of natural disease or of artificial disease, consists of two actions:
1.
The action of the Wesen of the disease agent (natural or artificial) involving
the penetration of the generative aspect of the Living Power. This part of the
process is akin to an impregnation.
This part of disease Hahnemann called the "initial action"
(Erstwirkung).
2.
§63.1. Each Life-impinging Potence, each medicine,
resonifies [stimmt] the Living Power more or less and
arouses a certain alteration of condition in man for a longer
or shorter time.
§63.2. One designates it by the name of initial-action
[ Erstwirkung ].
The action of the sustentive aspect of the Living Power to rid the organism of
the disease Wesen now growing (being generated) by means of the generative
aspect of that power. This attempt to eliminate the disease Wesen can so stress
the organism that it becomes part of the disease.
Hahnemann called this part of disease the "counter-action" or
"back action" (Gegenwirkung).
Thus, the process of Heilen (literally, wholing or salvation)
also has two parts.
First, the Wesen of the remedy (artificial disease potence)
impinges on the generative power of the patient and destroys the
disease Wesen therein. This is the initial or curative action of the
remedy. In this process, the Living Power acts receptively, not
resisting the impingement.
Second, the sustentive aspect of the Living Power now reacts to
the impregnation (generative stimulus) by the remedial Wesen,
attempting to remove it in turn and to restore normal functioning.
This is the counter, or healing, reaction of the Living Power of the
patient. This dual action constitutes the complete living function of
Heilen.
§63.4. Our Living Power strives to oppose this impinging
action with its own energy.
Dual Nature: Disease and Remediation
41
The Duality of the Disease Process
§63.5. This back-action belongs to the Sustentive Power of
our Life [Lebens-Erhaltungs-Kraft ] and is an automatic
function of the same, called after-action or counteraction.
The initial action itself also has two aspects. The eradication of
the natural disease through the initial action occurs as a result of the
action of the medicine and the action of the generative side of the
Living Power. Thus, the initial-action consists of two sides as well,
although the action of the medicine is the more important of the
two.
§63.3. Although a product of medicinal and Living Power, it
belongs more to the impinging Potence.
Here Hahnemann gives us a clear image of the effect of the
medicinal Wesen and leaves no doubt that this is in the nature of a
sexual act, which involves the generative aspect of the Living
Power.
That the generative side is involved is reinforced by the previous Aphorism wherein Hahnemann explains the two actions. The
first, the Erstwirkung, is said to resonify or re-tune the Living
Power. The term Hahnemann uses here is stimmt, which is the term
used when he is speaking of the action of the generative power.
42
Dual Nature: Disease and Remedia-
CHAPTER 5
Suppression
The issue of suppression is important because the true physician (Heilkünstler) does not desire to suppress, but rather to annihilate (cure) disease and, thereby, to allow the sustentive power of the
organism to heal, leading to full remediation.
Hahnemann identifies three possible approaches to the medical
treatment of disease
1. Law of Opposites
2. Law of Similars
3. No principle at all (unlawful)
§22.1. — whereas, on the other hand, it follows that for the
complex of the symptoms of the disease to be cured that
medicine must be sought (according as experience shows
whether the disease symptoms b y s i m i l a r o r o p p o s i t e
m e d i c i n a l s y m p t o m s are to be lifted and transmuted into
health most easily, most certainly and permanently) which
has proven the greatest tendency to engender similar or
opposite symptoms.
§22.1.a]1 The other possible manner of employing medicines against diseases besides both of these is the a l l o pathic method in which medicines are prescribed
w h o s e s y m p t o m s have no direct pathic reference to the
disease state, therefore a r e n e i t h e r s i m i l a r n o r
o p p o s e d t o t h e d i s e a s e s y m p t o m s ; rather, are
entirely heterogenic. (bold added)
Opposites is a valid principle in some dimensions as Hahnemann points out (regimen, psychotherapy), but in the realm of natural disease, opposites can only palliate. This is a temporary form of
suppression of the symptoms of the disease, which only leaves the
Suppression
43
disease stronger than before. The allopathic means (e.g., blood
withdrawals) also leads to suppression.
§106. In not very dangerous cases, the acute diseases were
held down so long by the old school by means of blood withdrawals or suppression of one of the chief symptoms by an
enantiopathic palliative means (Contrary Things by Means
of Contraries)...
§151. ... even by use of violent palliatives, according to the
old popular motto: Let Contrary Things be Cured by Contrary Things...
§23.1. However, each pure experience and each exact
experiment persuades us that persistent disease symptoms
are so little lifted and annihilated by the opposed symptoms
of the medicine (in the antipathic, enantiopathic or palliative method) that rather, after short lasting apparent
relief, they again break forth only then in an all the more
strengthened degree and evidently get worse (see §56-62
and 69).
§56.1. With this palliative (antipathic, enantiopathic)
method, introduced seventeen centuries ago according to
Galen's teaching, the hitherto doctors could still most certainly hope to win the trust of the patient in that they
deceived him with almost instantaneous improvement.
Suppression, as was noted briefly above, can also occur by the
use of medical treatments on the basis of no principle. Either the
treatment simply weakens the sustentive power (such as bloodletting or a deficient diet) or it irritates the system without even providing any palliation (drugs applied on no specific principle).
§74.1.a]1 Amidst all the methods which have been devised
for helping against diseases, no more allopathic, no more
nonsensical, no more inexpedient one can be thought of than
the Broussaic enervation treatment consisting of bloodletting and a starvation diet spread over a large part of the
earth for many years, regarding which no intelligent
human being is capable of thinking anything medical, anything medicinally helpful; whereas real medicine, even
blindly seized and administered to the patient, has
improved a disease case here and there after all because it
was accidentally homeopathic.
§145.2. ...the general and special therapies of the hitherto
allopathic medicinal art, with their unknown compound
means which only alter and aggravate but cannot cure
chronic diseases, but protract rather than promote the
cure of acute diseases, often even bringing about endangerment to life.
44
Suppression
§149.2. ...the often long-continued application of large
doses of violently acting means according to empty, false
suppositions about their alleged use in similarly appearing
disease cases...
Hahnemann further discusses the impact of too large a dose of
a drug when given homeopathically (which he terms un-homeopathic or allopathic) as having a damaging effect (we now know
this through the Arndt-Schultz Law).
§276.4.a]1 Thus arise almost incurable mercurial sicknesses by persistent use of aggressive allopathic mercurial
means prescribed in large doses against Syphilis, when yet
one or several doses of a mild but effective mercurial
means would certainly have thoroughly cured the entire
venereal disease along with the chancre in a few days, if the
chancre had not been dispelled by external measures (as
always happens with Allopathy).
§276.4.a]2 In the same way, the Allopath gives China bark
and quinine in intermittent fevers in very large daily
doses, where such were correctly homeopathically indicated and where one very small dose of highly potentized
China must unfailingly have helped (in intermittent swamp
fevers and even with persons who suffered with no apparent Psora), thereby engendering (while Psora is evolving
at the same time) a chronic China-sickness which, if not
gradually killing the patient by corruption of internal
organs important for Life, especially the spleen and the
liver, at least makes him suffer in a sad state of health for
years on end.
The application of the law of contraries in natural disease, if
applied in small doses and judiciously, only leaves the patient
where he was or worse off because of the natural progression of the
disease. There may be some worsening due to the drug, but usually
only because the effort of detoxification drains the sustentive power
of the patient. Large drug doses over extended periods of time tend
to engender iatrogenic diseases. Kent also makes the useful observation that the more drugs are refined, the more they can impinge
on the Living Power and cause disease.
But the drugs of today are ten times more powerful than
those formerly used, because more concentrated…The
chemical discoveries of petroleum have opened a field of
destruction to human intelligence, to the understanding and
to the will, because these products are slowly and insidiously violent. When drugs were used that were instantly
dangerous and violent, the action was manifest, it showed
Suppression
45
upon the surface, and the common people saw it…The
apparent benefits produced by these drugs are never permanent. They may in some cases seem to be permanent, but
then it is because upon the economy has been engrafted a
new and most insidious disease, more subtle and more tenacious than the manifestation that was upon the externals
and it is because of this tenacity that the original symptoms
remain away. (Kent, Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy,
p. 21)
46
Suppression
CHAPTER 6
Isopathy
The terms "isopathy" and "isodes" encapsulate the development of the constant Wesen side of disease. Hahnemann criticised
the use of the principle of equality on which isopathy is based,
rightfully seeing it as only a variant of the law of similars (as true
isopathy is what allopaths use, such as in vaccinations, with all its
attendant disease effects). He accepted that the remedies chosen on
the basis of their relationship to the disease material (containing the
disease potence) were a valid application of the law of similar resonance and were the missing link to the treatment of the constant
Wesen diseases.
So-called isopathic remedies represent another dimension of
disease and treatment involving a relationship of medicine to disease agent, whether infectious (natural, i.e., existing in nature) or
poisons, both natural (e.g., snake bites or toxic metals) or medicinal
(synthetic, i.e., man-made). The use of such remedies is simply a
variant of the law of similars.
History of Isopathic Remedies
• The use of disease material to treat certain diseases of known etiology (cause)
has a long history. In a chapter by Dr. Marc Haffen, in O.A. Julian's Treatise
on Dynamised Micro-Immunotherapy, the following examples are cited:
• Use by Bohemians of venom introduced near a snake bite; by Columbian
Indians of a serum made from the liver of a serpent.
• People in China were made to wear the clothes of smallpox patient who was
in full suppuration stage or by introducing the dried pustule into the nostrils.
Isopathy
47
Hering and Isopathic Remedies
• Hippocrates: the use of the slime of a rabid dog to guard against rabies.
• Dioscorides: recommends the use of the liver of the dog that has bitten a person, grilled earthworms to get rid of worms, the flesh of the viper and crushed
scorpion that have bitten one. He also stated the principle that where there is
the disease, there is also the remedy.
• Paracelsus: "The similars cure the similars, the scorpion cures the scorpion,
mercury cures mercury. The poison is mortal for man except, if in the organism there is another poison with which it may fight, in which case the patient
regains his health." (Compendium philosophae, 1568). Paracelsus used very
weak doses of the poisons.
• Robert Fludd in the 17th Century treats tuberculosis with the dilution of the
sputum of the patient, prepared spleen to prevent enlarged spleen and kidney
stone to prevent kidney stone formation.
• Anthanasius Kircher: "The poisonings in general are cured by their proper
counterpoisons. Thus, the bite of the spider will be cured by the application of
a spider, the biting of a scorpion by the application of the scorpion, the poison
of a rabid dog is drawn out of the body by the furs of the same dog." (Magna
sive de arte magnetica.) "Ubi morbus, ibi etiam medicamentum morbo illis
opportunum (There where there is disease, there also is the proper remedy of
the disease)." (In mundus subterranius, 1645)
• Lady Montague has her child vaccinated by an extract of smallpox pus. Prof.
Phillipus Nettr of Venice (1718) recommends the use of dried pus from the
plague eruption against the plague. Frances Home of Edinburg used the blood
of the patient suffering from measles against that disease (Homoeo medical
facts and Experiments, 1754).
Hering and Isopathic Remedies
Constantine Hering, who was a contemporary of Hahnemann
and carried on a close correspondence with him, is perhaps the
father of isopathic remedy use. Hering used the venom from the
Bushmaster snake, creating the remedy Lachesis. He also used the
saliva of a rabid dog. Later he developed the use of the potentised
pus of scabies (Psorinum), smallpox (Variolinum) and speculated
that there was a principle allowing the use of disease agents to treat
and prevent against acute diseases (sporadic and epidemic diseases
such as the plague and anthrax).
48
Isopathy
Lux and the Thesis of Equality
It is interesting that Hering's wide-ranging research and inquiries led him into other areas such as the use of organ remedies and
tissue salts. Hering speculated that some products of the human
body and some parts of the healthy organism had a more particular
action on the parts from which they are derived (Stapf's Archiv für
die homöopathische Heilkunst, 14-2, pp. 98-99). Hering also speculated that various chemical elements found in the organism would
have a particular effect on the organs in which they can be principally found (Archiv, 13-3, p. 65 and 14-3, p. 14).
Lux and the Thesis of Equality
Johann Wilhelm Lux was a well-known veterinarian who
taught and wrote extensively. In 1820, he came across the writings
of Hahnemann and started to apply this new approach to medicine.
He could be said to be the Father of Veterinary Homeopathy. He
founded many homeopathic associations and started the first periodical devoted to veterinary homeopathy. He dedicated his first volume of the periodical, Zooiasis, to Hahnemann.
Lux was asked at one point (1831) what remedy could be used
against anthrax and Lues bovum pestifera (rinderpest), but not otherwise knowing a remedy, advised the use of the 30th dilution of
the nasal mucous of the animal suffering from rinderpest and of the
blood of an animal suffering from anthrax. This led to success in
treatment of this disease and in 1833 Lux published his results in a
small pamphlet, Isopathik der Contagionen. In this work, Lux proposed an idea not unusual given the history noted above, namely
that "...all diseases carry in them the means of their cure." In the
context of his time, this implied the use of diluted and dynamised
morbid agents such as:
* Scabby of sheep
* Tinea of animals
* Itch (psora) of man
* The blood of the spleen of animals suffering from anthrax
* Pus of syphilis
* Serum taken from vesicles of Marochetti in rabid persons
Isopathy
49
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
* Lymph of anthrax and of the plague and cholera
* Products from secretions of men and animals (dynamised
fecal matter, foot sweats, saliva of epileptics, etc.)
* Drugs used to excess (e.g., diluted Sulphur against the
abuse of sulphur)
Lux then went further by suggesting a new principle — aequalia aequalibus curentur — to replace the principle of similia similibus curentur. Hering and Lux's work, set against a medical
backdrop of experimentation with disease material for medicinal
agents, triggered a greater use of such remedies.
The main proponents at the time were Attomyr, a German
homeopath; Gross, one of Hahnemann's original provers, and coeditor with Stapf of the first homeopathic periodical, Archiv für die
homöopathische Heilkunst (Archive for the Homeopathic Remedial
Art); Herrmann, a homeopath in Austria; Jolly, a dentist in Istanbul;
Theuille, a homeopath in Moscow who made remedies from leprosy and the bubonic plague; and Weber, a German homeopathic
veterinarian who conducted trials with Anthracinum.
Attomyr and Gross spread the knowledge about Psorinum produced by Hering. Weber wrote a serious and scientific study of his
work on the treatment of anthrax using a potentised nosode (30C of
the blood of a diseased spleen) (Der Milzbrand und dessen sichersten Heilmittel, Leipzig, 1836). Jolly wrote to Hahnemann about
work that Theuille was doing in Moscow regarding the plague using
the 30th dilution (Archiv, 1837, v.6, p. 289). Herrmann took up Hering's ideas on organ remedies and felt that the real scope of isopathy
was "the medicinal power of substances of homonomus organs"
(Allgemeine Hom. Zeitung, 1844, Bd. 27, p. 187). He then published a book on organotherapy in 1848, which is the origin of later
work in this direction, such as by German and French researchers,
but also that of Compton-Burnett in England.
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic
Remedies
Where does Hahnemann fit into this debate?
50
Isopathy
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
Hahnemann must have been knowledgeable about Lux's work
and ideas. These were not too far from the ideas Hering was generating. However, the bold challenge put forward by Lux as to the
principle of cure forced Hahnemann to react. In the 5th Edition of
the Organon, which came out in the Fall of 1833, Hahnemann published his reply:
93.a]1. On these examples from domestic practice Mr. M.
Lux erects his s o - c a l l e d r e m e d i a l m o d e b y " e q u a l
a n d s a m e , " c a l l e d b y h i m I s o p a t h y, which some
eccentric heads have even already assumed as the "last
word" of remedial methodology, without being aware of how
they could realize this.
93.a]2 It is q u i t e a d i f f e r e n t m a t t e r , however, if one
judges these examples precisely.
93.a]3 The purely physical powers are of a different
nature than the dynamic medicinal ones in their impinging
action on the living organism.
93.a]4 Warmth or cold of the surrounding air or water or
of foods and drink do not in themselves (as warmth or cold)
cause absolute noxiousness for a healthy body; warmth and
cold belong in their alternations to the sustainment of a
healthy life and, consequently, are not medicinal in themselves.
93.a]5 Thus, warmth and cold do not act as remedies in
bodily ailments by virtue of their nature [Wesen] (therefore not as warmth and cold per se, not as things detrimental in themselves, as are perhaps the medicines rhubarb,
China, etc., even in the finest doses) — rather, merely by
virtue of their greater or lesser quantity; that is, according to their degree of temperature, just as (in order to give
another example of purely physical forces) a great lead
weight painfully bruises my hand,not by virtue of its
nature [Wesen] as lead, but due to its quantity and weight in
bulk, whilst a thin lead plate would not bruise me.
93.a]6 Therefore if cold or warmth prove to be helpful in
bodily ailments like frostbite and burns, they prove so
solely because of their degree of temperature, just as they
also, due to extremes in their degree of temperature,
inflict damage on the healthy body.
93.a]7 Accordingly w e f i n d i n t h e s e e x a m p l e s of help
from domestic practice t h a t t h e l i m b w a s n o t
r e s t o r e d i s o p a t h i c a l l y by the persistent employment of
that degree of cold wherein the limb froze (it would have
become quite lifeless and dead thereby), b u t r a t h e r b y a
cold which, only approximating it (Homeopathy),
Isopathy
51
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
gradually tones down to a comfortable temperature, as frozen sauerkraut applied to a frozen hand at room temperature soon melts away and gradually warms up from 32° to
33° [Fahr.] and so on up to the temperature of the room, be
it even only 50°, thus restoring the limb again by p h y s i cal homeopathy.
93.a]8 So also a h a n d s c a l d e d w i t h b o i l i n g w a t e r i s
not restored isopathically by application of boili n g w a t e r , b u t o n l y b y a somewhat lesser heat: e.g.,
when one holds it in a dish with a liquid that is heated to
140° [Fahr.], the liquid becomes somewhat less hot every
minute and finally assumes the temperature of the room,
whereupon the scalded part is again restored by H o m e o p athy.
93.a]9 Water which is still in the process of freezing will
not draw the frost out of potatoes and apples isopathically,
but only water near the freezing point.
93.a]10 Thus, to give another example of physical impinging action, the damage resulting from a blow to the forehead
by a hard object (a very painful bump) is quite soon
diminished in pain and swelling when one vigorously
presses the site with the ball of the thumb and ultimately
always more gently, homeopathically; however, n o t b y a n
equal blow with an equally solid body, isopathically, that would add insult to injury.
93.a]11 What is likewise adduced in that book in the way of
Isopathic 'cure', that muscular contractions in humans and
lower spinal paralysis in a dog, both arisen by means of
cold, have been rapidly remedied by cold bathing — this
event is f a l s e l y e x p l a i n e d b y I s o p a t h y .
93.a]12 Cold ailments have only the name of cold, but come
about in bodies prone thereto even with a sudden draft,
which was not at all cold.
93.a]13 The various effects of a cold bath on the living
organism in the healthy and diseased state are not to be
encompassed at all with a single concept, so that one immediately thereupon could found such an audacious system!
93.a]14 That snake bites, as stated there, would be cured
most surely by snake parts will remain a fable from the
days of yore until such an improbable assertion has been
confirmed by indubitable observations and experiences,
and it will probably never come to that.
93.a]15 Finally, that the saliva of a mad dog administered
to a man already raving from hydrophobia (in Russia) is
supposed to have cured him — this 'supposed to' will lead no
conscientious physician astray, however, i n t o d a n g e r o u s
52
Isopathy
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
imitation or into the erection of a so-called Isopathic system (as dangerous as its expansion is
highly improbable), which it has been passed off
f o r ( n o t b y t h e m o d e s t a u t h o r o f the little book: The
Isopathy of Contagions, Leipzic: Kollman, but) by its
eccentric devotees; especially by Dr. Gross, who cries
Isopathy up as the only correct remedial principle, and
insists on seeing Similar Things by Means of Similar
Things only as a stop-gap measure, thanklessly enough,
however, seeing as how he owes his fame and fortune solely
to this principle of Similar Things by Means of Similar
Things. (bold added to all quotes above)
Hahnemann is here responding not so much to Lux's pamphlet,
as to the apparent excesses of others. He is clearly worried that
some are taking the matter far beyond what Lux himself had proposed. Dr. Gross bears the brunt of the criticism for seeming to promote the principle of identities as the only one. Dr. Lux, the
"modest author of the little book: The Isopathy of Contagions," is
apparently not included in those who wish to raise a new system of
medicine on this new principle. Given that Lux uses the term "isopathy" in the title and text, this may seem surprising. However, if we
look to what Lux actually wrote, it becomes clearer.
In these cases that may be multiplied easily, the natural
force seems not to cure by the simillimum but by aequale
(although in another dynamisation)...
Some epidemics of the year 1832 were eradicated with
Isopathy helped by some remedies in the 30th dilution like
Mercurius, Spiritus sulphuratum, China, Natrum muriaticum…
Very often it is found that H o m o e o p a t h y [ t h a t i s , t h e
law of similars] is realised perfectly in Isopat h y , because we cure contagious disease by their own
infecting substance...
For more than 10 years, I treated all the animals by
Homoeopathy and I continue to follow with success this
marvelous means…
The positive results are so much attractive that I feel the
necessity to tell them to others and it is for this reason that
I have founded the review Zooaiassis or ‘Homoeopathic cure
destined to the diseases of animals.’ The first issue is going
to be published during the Easter of this year [1833].
(from Julian, Treatise on Dynamised Micro Immunotherapy, pp. 61-66) (bold and square brackets added)
Isopathy
53
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
Lux presented the concept of isopathy, or more correctly the
concept of deriving remedies in potency from disease matter, as a
variation of the law of similar resonance. This explains Hahnemann's exception of him from the criticism of those trying to erect a
new system of medicine on the concept. For Hahnemann, the use of
such “isopathic” remedies was consistent with the idea of specific
remedies related to diseases of common origin or constant nature.
What was not valid was the argument that this dimension of the law
of similars was somehow a new law. It was simply a principle
within the law of similar resonance.
Hahnemann also created a footnote to §56 in the 5th edition of
the Organon. By the time Hahnemann had written the Introduction
(1833), he had become aware of efforts to take what Hering and
Lux were doing to create a false system of medicine (Gross in particular) and made an addition to address this:
A fourth mode of employing medicines in diseases has been
attempted to be created by means of Isopathy, as it is called
- that is to say, a method of curing a given disease by the
same contagious principle that produces it. But even
granting this could be done, which would cert a i n l y b e a m o s t v a l u a b l e d i s c o v e r y , yet, after all,
seeing that the miasm (virus) is given to the patient highly
potentised, and thereby, consequently, to a certain degree
in an altered condition, t h e c u r e i s e f f e c t e d o n l y b y
o p p o s i n g a s i m i l l i m u m t o a s i m i l l i m u m . (bold
added)
Again, the language of Hahnemann's criticism makes clear that
Hahnemann supports the use of isopathic medicines (to cure a given
disease by the same contagious agent that produces it), but through
the use of potentised remedies, which only underscores the fact that
this is a variation of the law of similars. There is no new law of
identities. In the context of homogenic remedies, the use of such
remedies in crude, unpotentised form is highly dangerous, as would
be the case here due to chemical toxicity (and also with vaccinations).
Hahnemann also dealt with the issue raised by Lux and Hering
in his Chronic Diseases, second edition (1835-39):
379.1 The antipsoric medicines treated of in what follows
contain no so-called isopathic medicines, since their pure
actions, even those of the p o t e n t i z e d m i a s m a o f i t c h
( P s o r i n ) have not been proved enough, by far, that a safe
homeopathic use might be made of it. I s a y h o m e o p a t h i c
54
Isopathy
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
u s e , f o r i t d o e s n o t r e m a i n i d e m ( t h e s a m e ) ; even
if the prepared itch substance should be given to the same
patient from whom it was taken, it would not remain idem
(the same), as it could only be useful to him in a potentized
state, since crude itch substance which he already has on
his body as an idem is without effect on him. B u t t h e
dynamization or potentizing changes it and modif i e s i t ; just as gold leaf after potentizing is no more inactive crude gold leaf in the human body, but in every stage of
potentization it is more and more modified and changed.
380.1 T h u s p o t e n t i z e d a n d m o d i f i e d , t h e i t c h s u b stance (Psorin) when taken is also no more an
idem (same) with the crude original itch substance, but only a simillimum (thing most simil a r ) . For between IDEM and SIMILLIMUM there is no
intermediate [stage] for any one that can think; or in other
words between idem and simile only simillimum can be
intermediate. I s o p a t h i c a n d æ q u a l e a r e e q u i v o c a l
expressions, which if they should signify anything reliable, can only signify simillimum,
b e c a u s e t h e y a r e n o t i d e m ( t a u t o n ) . (bold added)
What is Hahnemann saying here? Again, he clearly accepts the
use of remedies made from disease material, such as Psorinum for
psora. For Hahnemann, however, it is incorrect to state that there is
a new law to explain the use of such remedies. When disease material or disease agents are potentised, they are no longer the same
(idem), but similar. Thus, their use falls under the domain of the law
of similar resonance.
Hahnemann modified the footnote in the 6th Edition:
§56.4.a]1 There are those who would gladly create a third
application of medicines against disease by means of Isopathy, as it is called, that is to say, cure a present disease
with the same miasm.
§56.4.a]2 But e v e n g r a n t e d t h e y c o u l d d o t h i s , s o
would Isopathy nevertheless only effectuate a
cure by opposing the Simillimo with a Simillim u m , since Isopathy only presents the miasm to the
patient highly potentized and consequently altered.
§56.4.a]3 But this intending to cure by means of an
entirely identical [crude] disease Potence contradicts all
healthy common sense and therefore all experience also.
§56.4.a]4 Those who first broached the subject of so called
Isopathy presumably had hovering before them the benefaction which humanity learned by the employment of the
cowpox inoculation, by which the inoculated one remained
Isopathy
55
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
free from all future smallpox infection and was cured of the
disease in advance as it were.
§56.4.a]5 B u t b o t h t h e c o w p o x a n d t h e s m a l l p o x
are only very similar, in no way entirely the
s a m e d i s e a s e ; they are in many respects divergent from
one another, in particular by the more rapid course and the
gentleness of the cowpox, but especially by virtue of the
fact that cowpox never infects the human being by proximity, and so by means of the general distribution of this
inoculation an end has been made to all epidemics of that
deadly, terrible smallpox to such an extent that the present
generation no longer has any graphic conception whatever
of that former horrible smallpox plague.
§56.4.a]6 Thus, t o b e s u r e , c e r t a i n a n i m a l d i s e a s e s
will proffer medicinal and curative Potences of
their own for very similar, important human
d i s e a s e s , and accordingly, supplement our homeopathic
medicinal stock happily even further.
§56.4.a]7 B u t m e a n i n g t o c u r e a h u m a n d i s e a s e
(scabies or maladies arisen therefrom) with an
identical [crude] human disease matter (e.g. with
a Psoricum taken from scabies) — that is going
too far!
§56.4.a]8 Nothing results from it but calamity and aggravation of the disease! (bold and square brackets added)
Hahnemann's modifications address another argument raised,
namely the use of cowpox to protect against smallpox. He also
underscores the danger, as in the case of homogenic remedies, of
using the remedy in crude doses. The text makes clearer that Hahnemann accepts the value of isodes (as he was now using Psorinum), but not the use of a system of medicine based on true identity,
that is, from the use of crude disease matter, which is highly dangerous, even deadly.
However, Hahnemann's attempts at dealing with this issue
were not well understood, not surprising given the general lack of
understanding of the dual nature of disease. On Hahnemann's death,
Griesselich, the editor of the journal, Hygea (1834-1848), who had
considerable influence in homeopathic circles at the time, followed
in Hahnemann's footsteps and attacked isopathy as a system, even
though he was sympathetic to the use of sarcodes and nosodes (and
had earlier developed the use of Psorinum which Hahnemann and
Hering took up).
56
Isopathy
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
The result was confusion and the casting of isodes and nosodes
into a shadowland of continued use without any clear understanding
of the basis for this use. On the one hand, they do not strictly conform to the prevailing idea that remedies should be prescribed
solely on the basis of symptomology (provings). On the other hand,
they are clinically effective when used on the basis of a direct relationship with a known and constant disease (such as measles,
whooping cough, smallpox, chronic miasms, etc.).
Isopathy
57
Hahnemann's Views on Isopathy and Isopathic Remedies
58
Isopathy
Bibliography
Eizayaga, Francisco, Treatise on Homoeopathic Medicine, First
Edition in English, Ediciones Maracel, Buenos Aires, 1991.
Kent, James Tyler, Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy,
Hahnemann, Samuel, Organon der Heilkunst, trans. by Steven R.
Decker (not yet published)
Hahnemann, Samuel, The Chronic Diseases, trans. by Steven R.
Decker (not yet published)
Hahnemann, Samuel, The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemannn,
collected and translated by R.E. Dudgeon, M.D., with a
Preface and Notes by E.E. Marcy, M.D., translator’s note of
1851, Jain Reprint 1990.
Kent, James Tyler, Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy (Preface
by Kent dated July 1, 1900, Evanston Illinois - Jain Reprint,
1977).
Sankaran, R., The Spirit of Homoeopathy, Second Edition, 1992,
Homoeopathic Medical Publishers, Bombay, India.
Verspoor, R. and Decker, S., The Dynamic Legacy: from
Homeopathy to Heilkunst, 2001 (on-line book)
Verspoor, R. and Decker, S., An Affair to Remember: The Curious
History of the Use of Dual Remedies, its Suppression and
Signficance, Hahnemann Center for Heilkunst, Ottawa,
Canada, 2003
Verspoor, R. and Decker, S., Selected Topics In Homeopathy: A
New Look at Old Issues, Hahnemann Center for Heilkunst,
Ottawa, Canada, 2003
i
Bibliography
ii
Index
A
Accessory symptoms 26
Action
gentle curative (initial) 21
Acute miasm 5
Aegidi 7
Anthrax 48, 49
Antidoting of remedy 28
Antipathic method 44
Arndt-Schultz Law 45
Artificial disease 22
Attomyr 50
B
Barriers, organic and dynamic 21
Blood-letting and a starvation diet 44
Bloodletting. weakens 44
Bubonic plague 50
C
China bark 45
Chronic disease 18
Chronic Diseases 54
Chronic miasms 57
Compton-Burnett 50
Constitutional homeostasis 32
Counter or back action and sustentive power 33
Counter-action
imperceptible in natural disease 21
Crude nature 34
D
Damaged tissue 34
Decker
i
Index
insight into direction of cure 6
Decker’s Postulate 14
Disease
artificial 22, 25, 37, 41
dual nature of 31
duality of 15
engenderment 37
engenderment (Erzeugen) 39
epidemic 5, 48
focus of true physician 12
homogenic 21
iatrogenic 13, 19
ideogenic 21
less to more noble organs 1
natural 36, 41
natural and law of contraries 45
natural development of 4
natural, Wesen 36
non-natural 21
offending matter (materia peccans) 40
sporadic 48
true 40
unique state 32
Wesen 41
Disease potence 47
Disease Wesen 7
Dynamis 40
E
Emotional mind. See Gemüt
Erstwirkung 41, 42
Erzeugen 39
Erzeugunskraft 39
ii
Index
G
Galen 44
Gegenwirkung 41
Gemüt 5
Generative power 32
Gross 50, 53, 54
H
Healing reaction 31
Healing reaction and sustentive power 19
Heilen
living function and dual action 41
two parts 41
Heilkünstler 14, 19, 43
Heilwirkung, remedial action 22
Hippocrates
and rabies 48
Homeopathic aggravation 31
positive sign of cure 18
Homeostasis, definition 33
Homogenic remedies 54
I
Idem 55
Initial action
two aspects 42
Isopathic and æquale signify simillimum 55
Isopathic remedies, so-called 47
J
Jolly 50
K
Kennen 3
iii
Index
Kent
and new symptoms 27
and reverse order of diseases 6
confusion, groups of symptoms 10
refined drugs and effects 45
violent counter-action 22
Kent’s Addendum 14
L
Lachesis (Bushmaster snake) 48
Lebens-Erhaltungs-Kraft 12, 33, 38, 39, 42
Lebens-Erzeugungs-Kraft 35, 38
Lebenskraft 39
Leprosy 50
Life Force 25, 31, 32, 38
and chronic disease 3
mystical view of 11
sustentive aspect and healing reaction 19
Living Power 12, 31, 32, 33, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 45
Living Principle 36
Lysis and destruction of disease 19
M
Moral condition 4
Moral symptoms 4
N
Natural disease 18, 43
New symptoms
antidoting 28
Palliating 28
Noble organs 2
O
O.A. Julian 47
iv
Index
Organ remedies 50
and Hering 49
Organic laws of the body 34
Organon
first American edition, 1845 3
Organon, 5th edition 51
Organotherapy 50
P
Palliation 44
Paracelsus
and isopathy 48
Patient, not the disease 13
Peripheral disturbances 7
Plague 48
Potence, impinging 42
Proving
new symptoms not a 27
Provings 57
Psora 45
Psorinum 48, 50, 55, 56
Psychoanalysts 8
Psychotherapy, and law of opposites 43
R
Regimen 43
and law of opposites 43
Remedy
pathic, and pathology 8
state-based or constant Wesen 8
S
Sankaran
central disturbance 6
central disturbance and Kent’s center 22
v
Index
increase in central disturbance 7
state of mind prescribing 6
Scabies 48
Self-limiting diseases 35
Stapf's Archiv 49
Stimmt 41, 42
Sustentive power
and healing reaction 19
T
Tissue salts
and Hering 49
Traumas and blockages to healing 22
U
Urgent cases and new symptoms 26
V
Vaccinations 47, 54
Vis medicatrix naturae 33
W
Weber 50
Wesen 36
medicinal 37
of medicine acts on Wesen of natural disease 11
Wesen of the disease agent 36
vi