§ 32
But it is quite otherwise with the artificial morbific agents which we
term medicines. Every real medicine, namely, acts at all times, under all
circumstances, on every living human being, and produces in him its peculiar symptoms
(distinctly perceptible, if the dose be large enough), so that evidently every living
human organism is liable to be affected, and, as it were, inoculated with the medicinal
disease at all times, and absolutely (unconditionally), which, as before said, is
by no means the case with the natural diseases.
In accordance with this fact, it is undeniably shown by all experience
1 that the living organism is much more disposed and has a greater liability to be acted on, and to have its health deranged by medicinal powers, than by morbific noxious agents and infectious miasms, or, in order words, that the morbific noxious agents possess a power of morbidly deranging man’s health that is subordinate and conditional, often very conditional; whilst medicinal agents have an absolute unconditional power, greatly superior to the former.1
A striking fact in corroboration of this is, that whilst previously to the
year 1801, when the smooth scarlatina of Sydenham still occasionally prevailed
epidemically among children, it attacked without exception all children who had escaped it
in a former epidemic; in a similar epidemic which I witnessed in Konigslutter, on the
contrary, all the children who took in time a very small dose of belladonna remained
unaffected by this highly infectious infantile disease. If medicines can protect from a
disease that is raging around, they must possess a vastly superior power of affecting our
vital force.
The greater strength of the artificial diseases producible by medicines
is, however, not the sole cause of their power to cure natural disease. In order that they
may effect a cure, it is before all things requisite that they should be capable of
producing in the human body an artificial disease as similar as possible to the
disease to be cured, in order, by means of this similarity, conjoined with its somewhat
greater strength, to substitute themselves for the natural morbid affection, and thereby
deprive the latter of all influence upon the vital force. This is so true, that no
previously existing disease can be cured, even by Nature herself, by the accession of a
new dissimilar disease, be it ever so strong, and just as little can it be cured
by medical treatment with drugs which are incapable of producing a similar morbid
condition in the healthy body.
§ 34 Sixth Edition
The greater strength of the artificial diseases producible by medicines
is, however, not the sole cause of their power to cure natural disease. In order that they
may effect a cure, it is before all things requisite that they should be capable of
producing in the human body an artificial disease as similar as possible to the
disease to be cured, which, with somewhat increased power, transforms to a very similar
morbid state the instinctive life principle, which in itself is incapable of any
reflection or act of memory. It not only obscures, but extinguishes and thereby
annihilates the derangement caused by the natural disease. This is so true, that no
previously existing disease can be cured, even by Nature herself, by the accession of a
new dissimilar disease, be it ever so strong, and just as little can it be cured
by medical treatment with drugs which are incapable of producing a similar morbid
condition in the healthy body.
In order to illustrate this, we shall consider in three different
cases, as well what happens in nature when two dissimilar natural diseases meet to in one
person, as also the result of the ordinary medical treatment of diseases with unsuitable
allopathic drugs, which are incapable of producing an artificial morbid condition similar
to the disease to be cured, whereby it will appear that even Nature herself is unable to
remove a dissimilar disease already present by one that is unhomœopathic, even though
it be stronger, and just as little is the unhomœopathic employment of even the
strongest medicines ever capable of curing any disease whatsoever.
I. If the two dissimilar diseases meeting together in the human being be of equal strength, or still more if the older one be the stronger, the new disease will be repelled by the old one from the body and not allowed to affect it. A patient suffering from a severe chronic disease will not be infected by a moderate autumnal dysentery or other epidemic disease. The plague of the Levant, according to Larry,1 does not break out where scurvy is prevalent, and persons suffering from eczema are not infected by it. Rachitis, Jenner alleges, prevents vaccination from taking effect. Those suffering from pulmonary consumption are not liable to be attacked by epidemic fevers of a not very violent character, according to Von Hildenbrand.
1 "Memoires et Observations," in the Description de l’ Egpte, tom. i.